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TO 

CHARLES LEVER, Esq., 

OF TEMPLEOGUE HOUSE, NEAR DUBLIN. 

My dear Lever, 

Harry Lorrequer needs no complimenting in a dedi- 
cation ; and I would not venture to inscribe this volume to the Editor of 
the " Dublin University Magazine," who, I fear, must disapprove of a 
great deal which it contains. 

But allow me to dedicate my little book to a good Irishman (the 
hearty charity of whose visionary red-coats, some substantial personages 
in black might imitate to advantage), and to a friend from whom I have 
received a hundred acts of kindness and cordial hospitality. 

Laying aside for a moment the travelling-title of Mr. Titmarsh, let 

me acknowledge these favours in my own name, and subscribe myself, 

my dear Lever, 

Most sincerely and gratefully yours, 

W. M. THACKERAY. 

London, April 27, 1843. 



THE 



IRISH SKETCH BOOK: 



AND 



NOTES OF A JOURNEY 

FROM CORNHILL TO GRAND CAIRO. 






. /-&Y W. Mf .tH ACKER-AY. 



35 * " Q 

> 

FT 




WITg/J^LUST^iTIONS BY 



THE v |UTHOS. 



^* V/ 






PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT AND CO. 

1872. 



CONTENTS. 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

OF 1842. 

CHAP. PAGE 

Dedication xi 

I. A Summer Day in Dublin, or There and Thereabouts i 
II. A Country-house in Kildare— Sketches of an Irish 

Family and Farm 23 

III. From Carlow to Waterford . 33 

IV. From Waterford to Cork 44 

V. Cork— The Agricultural Show — Father Mathew . 55 

VI. Cork — The Ursuline Convent 64 

VII. Cork 72 

VIII. From Cork to Bantry ; with an Account of the City 

of Skibbereen 84 

IX. Rainy Days at Glengariff 95 

X. From Glengariff to Killarney 102 

XL Killarney — Stag-hunting on the Lake . . . . no 

XII. Killarney— The Races — Muckross 118 

XIII. Tralee— Listowel — Tarbert 128 

XIV. Limerick 135 



vi CONTENTS. 

CHAP. PAGE 

XV. Galway— " Kilroy's Hotel "—Gal way Nights' Enter- 
tainments — First Night : An Evening with Cap- 
tain Freeny 148 

XVI. More Rain in Galway — A Walk there — And the 

Second Galway Night's Entertainment . . . 166 

XVII. From Galway to Ballinahinch 191 

XVIII. ROUNDSTONE PETTY SESSIONS 203 

XIX. Clifden to Westport 209 

XX. Westport 216 

XXI. The Pattern at Croaghpatrick 222 

XXII. From Westport to Ballinasloe 227 

XXIII. Ballinasloe to Dublin 231 

XXIV. Two Days in Wicklow 236 

XXV. Country Meetings in Kildare — Meath — Drogheda. . 253 

XXVI. Dundalk 267 

XXVII. Newry, Armagh, Belfast — From Dundalk to Newry . 281 

XXVIII. Belfast to the Causeway 293 

XXIX. The Giant's Causeway — Coleraine— Portrush . . . 303 

XXX. Peg of Limavaddy 315 

XXXI. Templemoyle — Derry 319 

XXXII. Dublin at Last . ...••... 332 



NOTES OF A JOURNEY 
FROM CORNHILL TO GRAND CAIRO. 



PAGE 

347 
349 



Dedication .... 
Preface 

I. Vigo.— Thoughts at Sea— Sight of Land— Vigo— Spanish 

Ground— Spanish Troops— Pasagero 351 

II. Lisbon-Cadiz. -Lisbon-The Belem Road-A School- 
Landscape-Palace of Necessidades— Cadiz— The Rock . . 358 

III. The "Lady Mary Wood." -British Lions - Travelling 

Friends-Bishop No. 2— » Good-by, Bishop "—The Meek 
Lieutenant— "Lady Mary Wood" 367 

IV. Gibraltar. -Mess-Room Gossip -Military Horticulture- 

" All's Well "- A Release - Gibraltar- Malta— Religion 
and Nobility- Malta Relics-The Lazaretto-Death in the 
Lazaretto . 

V. Athens.— Reminiscences of rivrb— The Peireus-Landscape 
— Basileus-England for Ever .'-Classic Remains-rtf*™ 
again. 

VI. Smyrna-First Glimpses of the East. -First Emotions- 
The Bazaar-A Bastinado-Women-The Caravan Bridge 
—Smyrna— The Whistler 

VII. CONSTANTINOPLE.-Caicmes-Eothen's " Misseri "-A Turkish 
Bath -Constantinople -His Highness the Sultan— Ich 
mochte nicht der Sultan seyn-A Subject for a Ghazul- 
The Child-Murderer- Turkish Children-Modesty-The 
Seraglio-The Sultanas' Puffs-The Sublime Porte-The 
Schoolmaster in Constantinople . 



374 



386 



395 



403 



CONTENTS. 

CHAP. TAGE 

VIII. Rhodes. — Jew Pilgrims — Jew Bargaining — Relics of Chivalry — 
Mahometanism Bankrupt — A Dragoman — A Fine Day — 
Rhodes 423 

IX. The White Squall 431 

X. Telmessus — Beyrout. — Telmessus — Halil Pasha — Beyrout — 

A Portrait— A Ball on Board— A Syrian Prince . . . 435 

XI. A Day and Night in Syria. — Landing at Jaffa— Jaffa — The 
Cadi of Jaffa— The Cadi's Divan— A Night-Scene at Jaffa- 
Syrian Night's Entertainments 443 

XII. From Jaffa to Jerusalem.— A Cavalcade— Marching Order 
— A Tournament — Ramleh — Roadside Sketches — Rencon- 
tres — Abou Gosh — Night before Jerusalem . . . 45° 

XIII. Jerusalem. — A Pillar of the Church — Quarters — Jewish Pilgrims 

— Jerusalem Jews — English Service — Jewish History — The 
Church of the Sepulchre — The Porch of the Sepulchre — 
Greek and Latin Legends — The Church of the Sepulchre — 
Bethlehem — The Latin Convent — The American Consul — 
Subjects for Sketching — Departure — A Day's March — 
Ramleh 459 

XIV. From Jaffa to Alexandria. — Bill of Fare — From Jaffa to 

Alexandria. 479 

XV. To Cairo.— The Nile— First Sight of Cheops— The Ezbekieh— 
The Hotel d'Orient — The Conqueror Waghorn — Architecture 
— The Chief of the Hag— A Street- Scene— Arnaoots— A 
Gracious Prince — The Screw- Propeller in Egypt — The 
"Rint" in Egypt— The Maligned Orient— " The Sex"— 
Subjects for Painters — Slaves — A Hyde Park Moslem — 
Glimpses of the Harem — An Eastern Acquaintance — An 
Egyptian Dinner — Life in the Desert — From the Top of the 
Pyramid — Groups for Landscape — Pigmies and Pyramids — 
Things to think of— Finis 486 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

OF 1842. 




THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER I. 

A SUMMER DAY IN DUBLIN, OR THERE AND THEREABOUTS. 

The coach that brings the passenger by wood and mountain, by 
brawling waterfall and gloomy plain, by the lonely lake of Festiniog 
and across the swinging world's wonder of a Menai Bridge, through 
dismal Anglesea to dismal Holyhead — the Birmingham mail, — 
manages matters so cleverly, that after ten hours' ride the traveller is 
thrust incontinently on board the packet, and the steward says there's 
no use in providing dinner on board because the passage is so short. 

That is true : but why not give us half an hour on shore ? Ten 
hours spent on a coach-box render the dinner question one of extreme 
importance ; and as the packet reaches Kingstown at midnight, when 
all the world is asleep, the inn-larders locked up, and the cook in 
bed ; and as the mail is not landed until five in the morning (at 
which hour the passengers are considerately awakened by a great 
stamping and shouting overhead), might not "Lord Lowther" give 
us one little half hour ? Even the steward agreed that it was a 
useless and atrocious tyranny; and, indeed, after a little demur, 
produced a half-dozen of fried eggs, a feeble makeshift for a dinner. 

Our passage across from the Head was made in a rain so pouring 
and steady, that sea and coast were entirely hidden from us, and one 
could see very little beyond the glowing tip of the cigar which 
remained alight nobly in spite of the weather. When the gallant 



2 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

exertions of that fiery spirit were over for ever, and burning bravely 
to the end it had breathed its last in doing its master service, all 
became black and cheerless around ; the passengers had dropped off 
one by one, preferring to be dry and ill below rather than wet and 
squeamish above : even the mate, with his gold-laced cap (who is so 
astonishingly like Mr. Charles Dickens that he might pass for that 
gentleman) — even the mate said he would go to his cabin and turn in. 
So there remained nothing for it but to do as all the world had done. 

Hence it was impossible to institute the comparison between the 
Bay of Naples and that of Dublin (the Bee of Neeples the former is 
sometimes called in this country), where I have heard the likeness 
asserted in a great number of societies and conversations. But how 
could one see the Bay of Dublin in the dark? and how, supposing 
one could see it, should a person behave who has never seen the 
Bay of Naples?. It is but to take the similarity for granted, and 
remain in bed till morning. 

When everybody was awakened at five o'clock by the noise 
made upon the removal of the mail-bags, there was heard a cheerless 
dribbling and pattering overhead, which led one to wait still further 
until the rain should cease. At length the steward said the last boat 
was going ashore, and receiving half-a-crown for his own services (the 
regular tariff) intimated likewise that it was the custom for gentlemen 
to compliment the stewardess with a shilling, which ceremony was 
also complied with. No doubt she is an amiable woman, and 
deserves any sum of money. As for inquiring whether she merited 
it or not in this instance, that surely is quite unfair. A traveller who 
stops to inquire the deserts of every individual claimant of a shilling 
on his road, had best stay quiet at home. If we only got what we 
deserved, — heaven save us ! — many of us might whistle for a dinner. 

A long pier, with a steamer or two at hand, and a few small 
vessels lying on either side of the jetty ; a town irregularly built, 
with many handsome terraces, some churches, and showy-looking 
hotels ; a few people straggling on the beach ; two or three cars at 
the railroad station, which runs along the shore as far as Dublin; 
the sea stretching interminably eastward ; to the north the Hill of 
Howth, lying gray behind the mist ; and, directly under his feet, 
upon the wet, black, shining, slippery deck, an agreeable reflection of 
his own legs, disappearing seemingly in the direction of the cabin 
from which he issues : are the sights which a traveller may remark ) 



LANDING AT KINGSTON ~ r 3 

d» con. • g on deck at Kingstown pier o^ *t us say 

oh an average morning; for accor^' " well- 

informe-. 1 natives, the Irish dav ' ri se . 

A.hideou, obelisk, stuck up vvith a 

:rown on cushion (thf , a ps of the 

nonarch in whose, ' .lemorates the 

;acred spot at \\ . You are landed 

iere fror- " b dawdling in the neigh- 

comes leisurely up to ask 
is it natural indolence, or the 
neighbouring railroad, which renders 
es not even take the straw out of his 
.ue question — he seems quite careless as to 

.. r ould take me to Dublin " in three quarthers," as 

m a parley. As to the fare, he would not hear of 

would leave it to my honour ; he would take me for 

. as it possible to refuse such a genteel offer ? The times 

.iiuch changed since those described by the facetious Jack 

, when the carmen tossed up for the passenger, and those who 

him took him : for the remaining cars on the stand did not seem 

j take the least interest in the bargain, or to offer to overdrive or 

underbid their comrade in any way. 

Before that day, so memorable for joy and sorrow, for rapture at 
eceiving its monarch and tearful grief at losing him, when George IV. 
came and left the maritime resort of the citizens of Dublin, it bore a 
less genteel name than that which it owns at present, and was called 
Dunleary. After that glorious event Dunleary disdained to be 
Dunleary any longer, and became Kingstown henceforward and for 
;ver. Numerous terraces and pleasure-houses have been built in the 
place — they stretch row after row along the banks of the sea, and 
rise one above another on the hill. The rents of these houses are 
said to be very high; the Dublin citizens crowd into them in summer; 
and a great source of pleasure and comfort must it be to them to have 
the fresh sea-breezes and prospects so near to the metropolis. 

The better sort of houses are handsome and spacious ; but the 
fash'onable quarter is yet in an unfinished state, for enterprising 
architects are always beginning new roads, rows and terraces : nor 
ure those already built by any means complete. Beside the aristo- 



4 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

cratic part of the town is a commercial one, and nearer to Dublin 
stretch lines of low cottages which have not a Kingstown look at all, 
but are evidently of the Dunleary period. It is quite curious to see 
in the streets where the shops are, how often the painter of the sign- 
boards begins with big letters, and ends, for want of space, with 
small ; and the Englishman accustomed to the thriving neatness and 
regularity which characterize towns great and small in his own 
country, can't fail to notice the difference here. The houses have 
a battered, rakish look, and seem going to ruin before their time. 
As seamen of all nations come hither who have made no vow of 
temperance, there are plenty of liquor-shops still, and shabby cigar- 
shops, and shabby milliners' and tailors' with fly-blown prints of old 
fashions. The bakers and apothecaries make a great brag of their 
calling, and you see medical hall, or public bakery, ba&Lyragget 
flour-store, (or whatever the name may be,) pompously inscribed 
over very humble tenements. Some comfortable grocers' and butchers' 
shops, and numbers of shabby sauntering people, the younger part of 
whom are barelegged and bareheaded, make up the rest of the picture 
which the stranger sees as his car goes jingling through the street. 

After the town come the suburbs, of pleasure-houses ; low, one- 
storeyed cottages for the most part : some neat and fresh, some that 
have passed away from the genteel state altogether, and exhibit down- 
right poverty ; some in a state of transition, with broken windows 
and pretty romantic names upon tumble-down gates. Who lives in 
them ? One fancies that the chairs and tables inside are broken, that 
the teapot on the breakfast-table has no spout, and the tablecloth is 
ragged and sloppy; that the lady of the house is in dubious curl- 
papers, and the gentleman, with an imperial to his chin, wears a flaring 
dressing-gown all ragged at the elbows. 

To be sure, a traveller who in ten minutes can see not only the 
outsides of houses, but the interiors of the same, must have remarkably 
keen sight ; and it is early yet to speculate. It is clear, however, that 
these are pleasure-houses for a certain class ; and looking at the 
houses, one can't but fancy the inhabitants resemble them somewhat. 
The car, on its road to Dublin, passes by numbers of these — by more 
shabbiness than a Londoner will see in the course of his home 
peregrinations for a year. 

The capabilities of the country, however, are very great, and ir 
many instances have been taken advantage of : for you see, beside 



ENTRANCE TO DUBLIN. 5 

the misery, numerous handsome houses and parks along the road, 
having fine lawns and woods ; and the sea is in our view at a quarter 
of an hour's ride from Dublin. It is the continual appearance of this 
sort of wealth which makes the poverty more striking : and thus 
between the two (for there is no vacant space of fields between 
Kingstown and Dublin) the car reaches the city. There is but little 
commerce on this road, which was also in extremely bad repair. It 
is neglected for the sake of its thriving neighbour the railroad ; on 
which a dozen pretty little stations accommodate the inhabitants of 
the various villages through which we pass. 

The entrance to the capital is very handsome. There is no bustle 
and throng of carriages, as in London ; but you pass by numerous 
rows of neat houses, fronted with gardens and adorned with all sorts 
of gay-looking creepers. Pretty market-gardens, with trim beds of 
plants and shining glass-houses, give the suburbs a riante and 
cheerful look ; and, passing under the arch of the railway, we are in 
the city itself. Hence you come upon several old-fashioned, well- 
built, airy, stately streets, and through Fitzwilliam Square, a noble 
place, the garden of which is full of flowers and foliage. The leaves 
are green, and not black as in similar places in London ; the red 
brick houses tall and handsome. Presently the car stops before an 
extremely big red house, in that extremely large square, Stephen's 
Green, where Mr. O'Connell says there is one day or other to be a 
Parliament. There is room enough for that, or for any other edifice 
which fancy or patriotism may have a mind to erect, for part of one 
of the sides of the square is not yet built, and you see the fields and 
the country beyond 



This then is the chief city of the aliens. — The hotel to which I 
had been directed is a respectable old edifice, much frequented by 
families from the country, and where the solitary traveller may like- 
wise find society : for he may either use the "Shelburne" as an hotel 
or a boarding-house, in which latter case he is comfortably accom- 
modated at the very moderate daily charge of six-and-eightpence. 
For this charge a copious breakfast is provided for him in the coffee- 
room, a perpetual luncheon is likewise there spread, a plentiful dinner 
is ready at six o'clock : after which there is a drawing-room and a 
rubber of whist, with toy and coffee and cakes in plenty to satisfy the 



6 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

largest appetite. The hotel is majestically conducted by clerks and 
other officers; the landlord himself does not appear, after the honest, 
comfortable English fashion, but lives in a private mansion hard by, 
where his name may be read inscribed on a brass-plate, like that of 
any other private gentleman. 

A woman melodiously crying " Dublin Bay herrings " passed just 
as we came up to the door, and as that fish is famous throughout 
Europe, I seized the earliest opportunity and ordered a broiled one 
for breakfast. It merits all its reputation : and in this respect I 
should think the Bay of Dublin is far superior to its rival of Naples. 
Are there any herrings in Naples Bay? Dolphins there may be; and 
Mount Vesuvius, to be sure, is bigger than even the Hill of Howth ; but 
a dolphin is better in a sonnet than at a breakfast, and what poet is 
there that, at certain periods of the day, would hesitate in his choice 
between the two ? 

With this famous broiled herring the morning papers are served 
up ; and a great part of these, too, gives opportunity of reflection to 
the new-comer, and shows him how different this country is from his 
own. Some hundred years hence, when students want to inform 
themselves of the history of the present day, and refer to files of Times 
and Chronicle for the puqDOse, I think it is possible that they will 
consult, not so much those luminous and philosophical leading-articles 
which call our attention at present both by the majesty of their 
eloquence and the largeness of their type, but that they will turn to 
those parts of the journals into which information is squeezed in the 
smallest possible print : to the advertisements, namely, the law and 
police reports, and to the instructive narratives supplied by that ill- 
used body of men who transcribe knowledge at the rate of a penny 
a line. 

The papers before me (The Morning Register, Liberal and Roman, 
Catholic, Saunders's News-Letter, neutral and Conservative,) give a 
lively picture of the movement of city and country on this present 
fourth day of July, 1842, and the Englishman can scarcely fail, as he 
reads them, to note many small points of difference existing between 
his own country and this. How do the Irish amuse themselves in the 
capital ? The love for theatrical exhibitions is evidently not very great. 
Theatre Royal — Miss Kemble and the Sonnambula, an Anglo- Italian 
importation. Theatre Royal, Abbey Street — The Temple of Magic 
and the Wizard, last week. Adelphi Theatre, Great Brunswick Street 



IRISH NEWSPAPERS. 7 

— The Original Seven Lancashire Bell-ringers : a delicious excitement 
indeed! Portobello Gardens — "The last eruption but six," says 
the advertisement in capitals. And, finally, " Miss Hayes will give 
her first and farewell concert at the Rotunda, previous to leaving her 
native country." Only one instance of Irish talent do we read of, 
and that, in a desponding tone, announces its intention of quitting 
its native country. All the rest of the pleasures of the evening are 
importations from cockney-land. The Sonnambula from Covent 
Garden, the Wizard from the Strand, the Seven Lancashire Bell- 
ringers from Islington, or the City Road, no doubt ; and as for " The 
last Eruption but Six," it has erumpedweax the " Elephant and Castle" 
any time these two years, until the cockneys would wonder at it no 
longer. 

The commercial advertisements are but few — a few horses and cars 
for sale ; some flaming announcements of insurance companies ; some 
" emporiums " of Scotch tweeds and English broadcloths ; an auction 
for damaged sugar ; and an estate or two for sale. They lie in the 
columns languidly, and at their ease as it were : how different from 
the throng, and squeeze, and bustle of the commercial part of a 
London paper, where every man (except Mr. George Robins) states 
his case as briefly as possible, because thousands more are to be 
heard besides himself, and as if he had no time for talking ! 

The most active advertisers are the schoolmasters. It is now the 
happy time of the Midsummer holidays ; and the pedagogues make 
wonderful attempts to encourage parents, and to attract fresh pupils 
for the ensuing half-year. Of all these announcements that of Madame 
Shanahan (a delightful name) is perhaps the most brilliant. " To 
Parents and Guardians. — Paris. — Such parents and guardians as may 
wish to entrust their children for education in its fullest extent to 
Madame Shanahan, can have the advantage of being conducted to Paris 
by her brother, the Rev. J. P. O'Reilly, of Church Street Chapei : " 
which admirable arrangement carries the parents to Paris and leaves 
the children in Dublin. Ah, Madame, you may take a French title ; 
but your heart is still in your country, and you are to the fullest extent 
an Irishwoman still ! 

Fond legends are to be found in Irish books regarding places 
where you may now see a round tower and a little old chapel, twelve 
feet square, where famous universities are once said to have stood, 
and which have accommodated myriads of students. Mrs. Hall 



8 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

mentions Glendalough, in Wicklow, as one of these places of learning ; 
nor can the fact be questioned, as the universities existed hundreds of 
years since, and no sort of records are left regarding them. A cen- 
tury hence some antiquary may light upon a Dublin paper, and form 
marvellous calculations regarding the state of education in the country. 
For instance, at Bective House Seminary, conducted by Dr. J. L. 
Burke, ex-Scholar T.C.D., no less than two hundred and three young 
gentlemen took prizes at the Midsummer examination : nay, some of 
the most meritorious carried off a dozen premiums a-piece. A 
Dr. Delamere, ex-Scholar T.C.D., distributed three hundred and 
twenty rewards to his young friends : and if we allow that one lad in 
twenty is a prizeman, it is clear that there must be six thousand four 
hundred and forty youths under the Doctor's care. 

Other schools are advertised in the same journals, each with its 
hundred of prize-bearers ; and if other schools are advertised, how 
many more must there be in the country which are not advertised ! 
There must be hundreds of thousands of prizemen, millions of 
scholars ; besides national-schools, hedge-schools, infant-schools, and 
the like. The English reader will see the accuracy of the calculation. 

In the Morning Register, the Englishman will find something to 
the full as curious and startling to him : you read gravely in the 
English language how the Bishop of Aureliopolis has just been con- 
secrated ; and that the distinction has been conferred upon him by — 
the Holy Pontiff! — the Pope of Rome, by all that is holy ! Such an 
announcement sounds quite strange in English, and in your own 
country, as it were : or isn't it your own country ? Suppose the 
Archbishop of Canterbury were to send over a clergyman to Rome, 
and consecrate him Bishop of the Palatine or the Suburra, I wonder 
how his Holiness would like that ? 

There is a report of Dr. Miley's sermon upon the occasion of the 
new bishop's consecration ; and the Register happily lauds the dis- 
course for its " refined and fervent eloquence." The Doctor salutes 
the Lord Bishop of Aureliopolis on his admission among the "Princes 
of the Sanctuary," gives a blow en passant at the Established Church, 
whereof the revenues, he elegantly says, "might excite the 'zeal of 
Dives or Epicurus to become a bishop," and having vented his sly 
wrath upon the " courtly artifice and intrigue " of the Bench, proceeds 
to make the most outrageous comparisons with regard to my Lord 
of Aureliopolis ; his virtues, his sincerity, and the severe privations 



IRISH NEWSPAPERS. 9 

and persecutions which acceptance of the episcopal office entails 
upon him. 

" That very evening," says the Register, " the new bishop enter- 
tained at dinner, in the chapel-house, a select number of friends ; 
amongst whom were the officiating prelates and clergymen who 
assisted in the ceremonies of the day. The repast was provided by 
Mr. Jude, of Grafton Street, and was served up in a style of elegance 
and comfort that did great honour to that gentleman's character as a 
restaurateur. TJie wines were of the richest and rarest quality. It 
may be truly said to have been an entertainment where the feast of 
reason and the flow of soul predominated. The company broke up 
at nine." 

And so my lord is scarcely out of chapel but his privations 
begin ! Well. Let us hope that, in the course of his episcopacy, 
he may incur no greater hardships, and that Dr. Miley may come to 
be a bishop too in his time ; when perhaps he will have a better opinion 
of the Bench. 

The ceremony and feelings described are curious, I think ; and 
more so perhaps to a person who was in England only yesterday, and 
quitted it just as their Graces, Lordships, and Reverences were 
sitting down to dinner. Among what new sights, ideas, customs, 
does the English traveller find himself after that brief six-hours' 
journey from Holyhead ! 

There is but one part more of the papers to be looked at ; and 
that is the most painful of all. In the law-reports of the Tipperary 
special commission sitting at Clonmel, you read that Patrick Byrne 
is brought up for sentence, for the murder of Robert Hall, Esq. : and 
Chief Justice Doherty says, " Patrick Byrne, I will not now recapitu- 
late the circumstances of your enormous crime, but guilty as you are 
of the barbarity of having perpetrated with your hand the foul 
murder of an unoffending old man — barbarous, cowardly and cruel 
as that act was — there lives one more guilty man, and that is he whose 
diabolical mind hatched the foul conspiracy of which you were but 
the instrument and the perpetrator. Whoever that may be, I do not 
envy him his protracted existence. He has sent that aged gentleman, 
without one moment's warning, to face his God ; but he has done 
more : he has brought you, unhappy man, with more deliberation and 
more cruelty, to face your God, with the weight of that man's blood 
upon you. I have now only to pronounce the sentence of the law : " 



io THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

— it is the usual sentence, with the usual prayer of the judge, that 
the Lord may have mercy upon the convict's soul. 

Timothy Woods, a young man of twenty years of age, is then 
tried for the murder of Michael Laffan. The Attorney-General states 
the case: — On the 19th of May last, two assassins dragged Laffan 
from the house of Patrick Cummins, fired a pistol-shot at him, and 
left him dead as they thought. Laffan, though mortally wounded, 
crawled away after the fall ; when the assassins, still seeing him give 
signs of life, rushed after him, fractured his skull by blows of a pistol, 
and left him on a dunghill dead. There Laffan's body lay for several 
hours, and nobody dared to touch it. Laffan's widow found the body 
there two hours after the murder, and an inauest was held on the body 
as it lay on the dunghill. Laffan was driver on the lands of Kilnertin, 
which were formerly held by Pat Cummins, the man who had the 
charge of the lands before Laffan was murdered; the latter was 
dragged out of Cummins's house in the presence of a witness who 
refused to swear to the murderers, and was shot in sight of another 
witness, James Meara, who with other men was on the road : 
when asked whether he cried out, or whether he went to assist the 
deceased, Meara answers, " Indeed I did not; we would not interfere — 
it was no business of ours /" 

Six more instances are given of attempts to murder ; on which the 
judge, in passing sentence, comments in the following way : — 

" The Lord Chief Justice addressed the several persons, and said 
— It was now his painful duty to pronounce upon them severally and 
respectively the punishment which the law and the court aAvarded 
against them for the crimes of which they had been convicted. 
Those crimes were one and all of them of no ordinary enormity — 
they were crimes which, in point of morals, involved the atrocious guilt 
of murder ; and if it had pleased God to spare their souls from the 
pollution of that offence, the court could not still shut its eyes to the 
fact, that although death had not ensued in consequence of the 
crimes of which they had been found guilty, yet it w r as not owing to 
their forbearance that such a dreadful crime had not been perpetrated. 
The prisoner, Michael Hughes, had been convicted of firing a gun 
at a person of the name of John Ryan (Luke) ; his horse had been 
killed, and no one could say that the balls were not intended for the 
prosecutor himself. The prisoner had fired one shot himself, and 
then called on his companion in guilt to discharge another. One of 



IRISH NEWSPAPERS. u 

these shots killed Ryan's mare, and it was by the mercy of God that the 
life of the prisoner had not become forfeited by his own act. The next 
culprit was John Pound, who was equally guilty of the intended out- 
rage perpetrated on the life of an unoffending individual — that indi- 
vidual a female, surrounded by her little children, five or six in number — 
with a complete carelessness to the probable consequences, while she 
and her family were going, or had gone, to bed. The contents of a gun 
were discharged through the door, which entered the panel in three 
different places. The deaths resulting from this act might have been 
extensive, but it was not a matter of any moment how many were de- 
prived of life. The woman had just risen from her prayers, preparing 
herself to sleep under the protection of that arm which would shield 
the child and protect the innocent, when she was wounded. As to 
Cornelius Flynn and Patrick Dwyer, they likewise were the subjects 
of similar imputations and similar observations. There was a very 
slight difference between them, but not such as to amount to any real 
distinction. They had gone upon a common, illegal purpose, to the 
bouse of a respectable individual, for the purpose of interfering with 
the domestic arrangements he thought fit to make. They had no 
sort of right to interfere with the disposition of a man's affairs ; and 
what would be the consequences if the reverse were to be held ? 
No imputation had ever been made upon the gentleman whose house 
was visited, but he was desired to dismiss another, under the pains' 
and penalties of death, although that other was not a retained servant, 
but a friend who had come to Mr. Hogan on a visit. Because this 
visitor used sometimes to inspect the men at work, the lawless edict 
issued that he should be put away. Good God ! to what extent did 
the prisoners and such misguided men intend to carry out their 
objects ? Where was their dictation to cease? are they, and those in 
a similar rank, to take upon themselves to regulate how many and 
what men a fanner should take into his employment ? Were they to 
be the judges whether a servant had discharged his duty to his prin- 
cipal ? or was it because a visitor happened to come, that the host 
should turn him away, under the pains and penalties of death ? His 
lordship, after adverting to the guilt of the prisoners in this case — 
the last two persons convicted, Thos. Stapleton and Thos. Gleeson — 
said their case was so recently before the public, that it was sufficient 
to say they were morally guilty of what might be considered wilful 
and deliberate murder. Murder was most awful, because it could 



12 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

only be suggested by deliberate malice, and the act of the prisoners 
was the result of that base, malicious, and diabolical disposition. 
What was the cause of resentment against the unfortunate man who 
had been shot at, and so desperately wounded ? Why, he had dared 
to comply with the wishes of a just landlord ; and because the land- 
lord, for the benefit of his tenantry, proposed that the farms should 
be squared, those who acquiesced in his wishes were to be equally 
the victims of the assassin. What were the facts in this case ? The 
two prisoners at the bar, Stapleton and Gleeson, sprung out at the 
man as he was leaving work, placed him on his knees, and without 
giving him a moment of preparation, commenced the work of blood, 
intending deliberately to despatch that unprepared and unoffending 
individual to eternity. What country was it that they lived in, in 
which such crimes could be perpetrated in the open light of day ? 
It was not necessary that deeds of darkness should be shrouded in 
the clouds of night, for the darkness of the deeds themselves was con- 
sidered a sufficient protection. He (the Chief Justice) was not aware 
of any solitary instance at the present commission, to show that the 
crimes committed were the consequences of poverty. Poverty should 
be no justification, however ; it might be some little palliation, but on 
no trial at this commission did it appear that the crime could be attri- 
buted to distress. His lordship concluded a most impressive address, 
by sentencing the six prisoners called up to transportation for life. 

" The clock was near midnight as the court was cleared, and the 
whole of the proceedings were solemn and impressive in the extreme. 
The commission is hkely to prove extremely beneficial in its results 
on the future tranquillity of the country." 

I confess, for my part, to that common cant and sickly sentimen- 
tality, which, thank God ! is felt by a great number of people nowa- 
days, and which leads them to revolt against murder, whether per- 
formed by a ruffian's knife or a hangman's rope : whether accom- 
panied with a curse from the thief as he blows his victim's brains out, 
or a prayer from my lord on the bench in his wig and black cap. Nay, 
is all the cant and sickly sentimentality on our side, and might not 
some such charge be applied to the admirers of the good old fashion ? 
Long ere this is printed, for instance, Byrne and Woods have been 
hanged : * sent " to face their God," as the Chief Justice says, " with 

* The two men were executed pursuant to sentence, and both persisted 
solemnly in denying their guilt. There can be no doubt of it : but it appears to 



A WALK THROUGH DUBLIN. 13 

the weight of their victim's blood upon them," — a just observation ; 
and remember that it is we who send them. It is true that the judge 
hopes Heaven will have mercy upon their souls ; but are such recom- 
mendations of particular weight because they come from the bench ? 
Psha ! If we go on killing people without giving them time to repent, 
let us at least give up the cant of praying for their souls' salvation. 
We find a man drowning in a well, shut the lid upon him, and heartily 
pray that he may get out. Sin has hold of him, as the two ruffians 
of Laffan yonder, and we stand aloof, and hope that he may escape. 
Let us give up this ceremony of condolence, and be honest, like the 
witness, and say, "Let him save himself or not, it's no business of 
ours." . . . Here a waiter, with a very broad, though insinuating 
accent says, "Have you done with the Sandthers, sir? there's a gentle- 
. man waiting for't these two hours." And so he carries off that 
strange picture of pleasure and pain, trade, theatres., schools, courts, 
churches, life and death, in Ireland, which a man may buy for a four- 
penny-piece. 



The papers being read, it became my duty to discover the town ; 
and a handsomer town, with fewer people in it, it is impossible to see 
on a summers day. In the whole wide square of Stephen's Green, 
I think there were not more than two nursery-maids to keep com- 
pany with the statue of George I., who rides on horseback in the 
middle of the garden, the horse having his foot up to trot, as if he 
wanted to go out of town too. Small troops of dirty children (too 
poor and dirty to have lodgings at Kingstown) were squatting here 
and there upon the sunshiny steps, the only clients at the thresholds 
of the professional gentlemen whose names figure on brass-plates on 
the doors. A stand of lazy carmen, a policeman or two with 
clinking boot-heels, a couple of moaning beggars leaning against the 
rails and calling upon the Lord, and a fellow with a toy and book 
stall, where the lives of St. Patrick, Robert Emmett, and Lord 
Edward Fitzgerald may be bought for double their value, were all the 
population of the Green. 

At the door of the Kildare Street Club, I saw eight gentlemen 

be a point of honour with these unhappy men to make no statement which may 
incriminate the witnesses who appeared on their behalf, and on their part 
perjured themselves equally. 



14 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

looking at two boys playing at leapfrog : at the door of the University 
six lazy porters, in jockey-caps, were sunning themselves on a bench 
— a sort of blue-bottle race ; and the Bank on the opposite side did 
not look, as if sixpence-worth of change had been negotiated there 
during the day. There was a lad pretending to sell umbrellas under 
the colonnade, almost the only instance of trade going on ; and I 
began to think of Juan Fernandez, or Cambridge in the long vacation. 
In the courts of the College, scarce the ghost of a gyp or the shadow 
of a bed-maker. 

In spite of the solitude, the square of the College is a fine sight : 
a large ground, surrounded by buildings of various ages and styles, 
but comfortable, handsome, and in good repair ; a modern row of 
rooms ; a row that has been Elizabethan once ; a hall and senate- 
house, facing each other, of the style of George I. ; and a noble 
library, with a range of many windows, and a fine manly, simple 
facade of cut stone. The library was shut. The librarian, I suppose, 
is at the seaside ; and the only part of the establishment which I 
could see was the museum, to which one of the jockey-capped 
porters conducted me, up a wide, dismal staircase, (adorned with an 
old pair of jack-boots, a dusty canoe or two, a few helmets, and a 
South Sea Islander's armour,) which passes through a hall hung 
round with cobwebs (with which the blue-bottles are too wise to 
meddle), into an old mouldy room, filled with dingy glass-cases, 
under which the articles of curiosity or science were partially visible. 
In the middle was a very seedy camelopard (the word has grown to 
be English by this time), the straw splitting through his tight old 
skin and the black cobbler's-wax stuffing the dim orifices of his 
eyes. Other beasts formed a pleasing group around him, not so tall, 
but equally mouldy and old. The porter took me round to the 
cases, and told me a great number of fibs concerning their contents : 
there was the harp of Brian Borou, and the sword of some one else, 
and other cheap old gimcracks with their corollary of lies. The 
place would have been a disgrace to Don Saltero. I was quite glad 
to walk out of it, and down the dirty staircase again : about the 
ornaments of which the jockey-capped gyp had more figments to 
tell ; an atrocious one (I forget what) relative to the pair of boots ; 
near which — a fine specimen of collegiate taste — were the shoes of 
Mr. O'Brien, the Irish giant. If the collection is worth preserving, — 
and indeed the mineralogical specimens look quite as awful as those 



A WALK THROUGH DUBLIN. 15 

in the British Museum, — one thing is clear, that the rooms are worth 
sweeping. A pail of water costs nothing, a scrubbing-brush not 
much, and a charwoman might be hired for a trifle, to keep the room 
in a decent state of cleanliness. 

Among the curiosities is a mask of the Dean — not the scoffer 
and giber, not the fiery politician, nor the courtier of St. John and 
Harley, equally ready with servility and scorn ; but the poor old 
man, whose great intellect had deserted him, and who died old, wild, 
and sad. The tall forehead is fallen away in a ruin, the mouth has 
settled in a hideous, vacant smile. Well, it was a mercy for Stella 
that she died first : it was better that she should be killed by his 
unkindness than by the sight of his misery ; which, to such a gentle 
heart as that, would have been harder still to bear. 

The Bank, and other public buildings of Dublin, are justly 
famous. In the former may still be seen the room which was the 
House of Lords formerly, and where the Bank directors now sit, 
under a clean marble image of George III. The House of Commons 
has disappeared, for the accommodation of clerks and cashiers. The 
interior is light, splendid, airy, well-furnished, and the outside of the 
building not less so. The Exchange, hard by, is an equally magni- 
ficent structure ; but the genius of commerce has deserted it, for all 
its architectural beauty. There was nobody inside when I entered 
but a pert statue of George III. in a Roman toga, simpering and 
turning out his toes ; and two dirty children playing, whose hoop- 
sticks caused great clattering echoes under the vacant sounding 
dome. The neighbourhood is not cheerful, and has a dingy, poverty- 
stricken look. 

Walking towards the river, you have on either side of you, at 
Carlisle Bridge, a very brilliant and beautiful prospect : the Four 
Courts and their dome to the left, the Custom House and its dome to 
the right ; and in this direction seaward, a considerable number of 
vessels are moored, and the quays are black and busy with the 
cargoes discharged from ships. Seamen cheering, herring-women 
bawling, coal-carts loading — the scene is animated and lively. Yonder 
is the famous Corn Exchange ; but the Lord Mayor is attending to 
his duties in Parliament, and little of note is going on. I had just 
passed his lordship's mansion in Dawson Street, — a queer old dirty 
brick house, with dumpy urns at each extremity, and looking as if a 
storey of it had been cut off — a rase'e-house. Close at hand, and 



1 6 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

peering over a paling, is a statue of our blessed sovereign George II. 
How absurd these pompous images look, of defunct majesties, for 
whom no breathing soul cares a halfpenny ! It is not so with the 
effigy of William III., who has done something to merit a statue. 
At this minute the Lord Mayor has William's effigy under a canvas, 
and is painting him of a bright green, picked out with yellow — his 
lordship's own livery. 

The view along the quays to the Four Courts has no small resem- 
blance to a view along the quays at Paris, though not so lively as are 
even those quiet walks. The vessels do not come above-bridge, and the 
marine population remains constant about them, and about numerous 
dirty liquor-shops, eating-houses, and marine-store establishments, 
which are kept for their accommodation along the quay. As far as 
you can see, the shining Liffey flows away eastward, hastening (like 
the rest of the inhabitants of Dublin) to the sea. 

In front of Carlisle Bridge, and not in the least crowded, though 
in the midst of Sackville Street, stands Nelson upon a stone pillar. 
The Post Office is on his right hand (only it is cut off) ; and on his 
left, " Gresham's" and the " Imperial Hotel." Of the latter let me say 
(from subsequent experience) that it is ornamented by a cook who 
could dress a dinner by the side of M. Borel or M. Soyer. Would 
there were more such artists in this ill-fated country ! The street is 
exceedingly broad and handsome ; the shops at the commencement, 
rich and spacious ; but in Upper Sackville Street, which closes with 
the pretty building and gardens of the Rotunda, the appearance of 
wealth begins to fade somewhat, and the houses look as if they had 
seen better days. Even in this, the great street of the town, there is 
scarcely any one, and it is as vacant and listless as Pall Mall in 
October. In one of the streets off Sackville Street, is the house and 
exhibition of the Irish Academy, which I went to see, as it was posi- 
tively to close at the end of the week. While 1 was there, two other 
people came in ; and we had. besides, the money-taker and a porter, 
to whom the former was reading, out of a newspaper, those Tipperary 
murders which were mentioned in a former page. The echo took up 
the theme, and hummed it gloomily through the vacant place. 

The drawings and reputation of Mr. Burton are well known in 
England : his pieces were the most admired in the collection. The 
best draughtsman is an imitator of Maclise, Mr. Bridgeman, whose 
pictures are full of vigorous drawing, and remarkable too for their 



A WALK THROUGH DUBLIN. 



1/ 



grace. I gave my catalogue to the two young ladies before mentioned, 
and have forgotten the names of other artists of merit, whose works 
decked the walls of the little gallery. Here, as in London, the Art 
Union is making a stir ; and several of the pieces were marked as the 
property of members of that body. The possession of some of these 
one would not be inclined to covet ; but it is pleasant to see that 
people begin to buy pictures at all, and there will be no lack of artists 
presently, in a country where nature is so beautiful, and genius so 
plenty. In speaking of the fine arts and of views of Dublin, it may 
be said that Mr. Petrie's designs for Curry's Guide-book of the City 
are exceedingly beautiful, and, above all, trustworthy : no common 
quality in a descriptive artist at present. 

Having a couple of letters of introduction to leave, I had the 
pleasure to find the blinds down at one house, and the window in 
papers at another ; and at each place the knock was answered in that 
leisurely way, by one of those dingy female lieutenants who have no 
need to tell you that families are out of town. So the solitude 
became very painful, and I thought I would go back and talk to the 
waiter at the " Shelburne," the only man in the whole kingdom that I 
knew. I had been accommodated with a queer little room, and 
dressing-room on the ground floor, looking towards the Green : a 
black-faced, good-humoured chamber-maid had promised to per- 
form a deal of scouring which was evidently necessary, (a fact she 
might have observed for six months back, only she is no doubt of an 
absent turn,) and when I came back from the walk, I saw the little 
room was evidently enjoying itself in the sunshine, for it had opened 
its window, and was taking a breath of fresh air, as it looked out upon 
the Green. Here is a portrait of the little window, 




18 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

As I came up to it in the street, its appearance made me burst 
out laughing, very much to the surprise of a ragged cluster of idlers 
lolling upon the steps next door; and I have drawn it here, not 
because it is a particularly picturesque or rare kind of window, but 
because, as I fancy, there is a sort of moral in it. You don't see such 
windows commonly in respectable English inns — windows leaning 
gracefully upon hearth-brooms for support. Look out of that window 
without the hearth-broom and it would cut your head off : how the 
beggars would start that are always sitting on the steps next door ! Is 
it prejudice that makes one prefer the English window, that relies on 
its own ropes and ballast (or lead if you like), and does not need to 
be propped by any foreign aid ? or is this only a solitary instance of 
the kind, and are there no other specimens in Ireland of the careless, 
dangerous, extravagant hearth-broom system ? 

In the midst of these reflections (which might have been carried 
much farther, for a person with an allegorical turn might examine the 
entire country through this window), a most wonderful cab, with an 
immense prancing cab-horse, was seen to stop at the door of the 
hotel, and Pat the waiter tumbling into the room swiftly with a card 
in his hand, says, " Sir, the gentleman of this card is waiting for you 
at the door." Mon dien ! it was an invitation to dinner ! and I almost 
leapt into the arms of the man in the cab — so delightful was it to find 
a friend in a place where, a moment before, I had been as lonely as 
Robinson Crusoe. 

The only drawback, perhaps, to pure happiness, when riding in 
such a gorgeous equipage as this, was that we could not drive up 
Regent Street, and meet a few creditors, or acquaintances at least. 
However, Pat, I thought, was exceedingly awe-stricken by my disap- 
pearance in this vehicle; which had evidently, too, a considerable 
effect upon some other waiters at the " Shelburne," with whom I was 
not as yet so familiar. The mouldy camelopard at the Trinity College 
" Musayum " was scarcely taller than the bay-horse in the cab ; the 
groom behind was of a corresponding smallness. The cab was of 
a lovely olive-green, picked out white, high on high springs and 
enormous wheels, which, big as they were, scarcely seemed to touch 
the earth. The little tiger swung gracefully up and down, holding on 
by the hood, which was of the material of which the most precious 
and polished boots are made. As for the lining — but here we come 
too near the sanctity of private life : suffice that there was a kind 



A HOSPITABLE RECEPTION. 19 

friend inside, who (though by no means of the fairy sort) was as 

welcome as any fairy in the finest chariot. W had seen me 

landing from the packet that morning, and was the very man who in 
London, a month previous, had recommended me to the " Shelburne." 
These facts are not of much consequence to the public, to be sure, 
except that an explanation was necessary of the miraculous appearance 
of the cab and horse. 

Our course, as may be imagined, was towards the seaside ; for 
whither else should an Irishman at this season go ? Not far from 
Kingstown is a house devoted to the purpose of festivity : it is called 
Salt Hill, stands upon a rising ground, commanding a fine view of the 
bay and the railroad, and is kept by persons bearing the celebrated 
name of Lovegrove. It is in fact a sea-Greenwich, and though 
there are no marine whitebait, other fishes are to be had in plenty, 
and especially the famous Bray trout, which does not ill deserve its 
reputation. 

Here we met three young men, who may be called by the names 
of their several counties — Mr. Galway, Mr. Roscommon, and Mr. 
Clare ; and it seemed that I was to complain of solitude no longer : for 
one straightway invited me to his county, where was the finest salmon- 
fishing in the world ; another said he would drive me through the 
county Kerry in his four-in-hand drag ; and the third had some pro- 
positions of sport equally hospitable. As for going down to some* 
races, on the Curragh of Kildare I think, which were to be held on 
the next and the three following days, there seemed to be no question 
about that. That a man should miss a race within forty miles, seemed 
to be a point never contemplated by these jovial sporting fellows. 

Strolling about in the neighbourhood before dinner, we went down 
to the seashore, and to some caves which had lately been discovered 
there ; and two Irish ladies, who were standing at the entrance of one 
of them, permitted me to take the following portraits, which were pro- 
nounced to be pretty accurate. 

They said they had not acquiesced in the general Temperance 
movement that had taken place throughout the country ; and, indeed, 
if the truth must be known, it was only under promise of a glass of 
whisky apiece that their modesty could be so far overcome as to 
permit them to sit for their- portraits. By the time they were done, a 
crowd of both sexes had gathered round, and expressed themselves 
quite ready to sit upon the same terms. But though there was great 



20 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

variety in their countenances, there was not much beauty ; and 
besides, dinner was by this time ready, which has at certain periods a 
charm even greater than art. 




The bay, which had been veiled in mist and grey in the morning, 
was now shining under the most beautiful clear sky, which presently 
became rich with a thousand gorgeous hues of sunset. The view was 
as smiling and delightful a one as can be conceived, — just such a one 
as should be seen a tr avers a good dinner; with no fatiguing sublimity 
or awful beauty in it, but brisk, brilliant, sunny, enlivening. In fact, 
in placing his banqueting-house here, Mr. Lovegrove had, as usual, a 
brilliant idea. You must not have too much view, or a severe one, to 



A DINNER AT LOVEGROVE'S. 21 

give a relish to a good dinner ; nor too much music, nor too quick, 
nor too slow, nor too loud. Any reader who has dined at a tabh-d 'hbte 
in Germany will know the annoyance of this : a set of musicians 
immediately at your back will sometimes play you a melancholy 
polonaise ; and a man with a good ear must perforce eat in time, and 
your soup is quite cold before it is swallowed. Then, all of a sudden, 
crash goes a brisk gallop ! and you are obliged to gulp your victuals 
at the rate of ten miles an hour. And in respect of conversation 
during a good dinner, the same rules of propriety should be consulted. 
Deep and sublime talk is as improper as sublime prospects. Dante 
and champagne (I was going to say Milton and oysters, but that is a 
pun) are quite unfit themes of dinner-talk. Let it be light, brisk, not 
oppressive to the brain. Our conversation was, I recollect, just the 
thing. We talked about the last Derby the whole time, and the state 
of the odds for the St. Leger ; nor was the Ascot Cup forgotten ; and 
a bet or two was gaily booked. 

Meanwhile the sky, which had been blue and then red, assumed, 
towards the horizon, as the red was sinking under it, a gentle, delicate 
cast of green. Howth Hill became of a darker purple, and the sails 
of the boats rather dim. The sea grew deeper and deeper in colour. 
The lamps at the railroad dotted the line with fire ; and the light- 
houses of the bay began to flame. The trains to and from the city 
rushed flashing and hissing by. In a word, everybody said it was 
time to light a cigar ; which was done, the conversation about th 
Derby still continuing. 

" Put out that candle," said Roscommon to Clare. This the 
latter instantly did by flinging the taper out of the window upon the 
lawn, which is a thoroughfare ; and where a great laugh arose among 
half a score of beggar-boys, who had been under the window for 
some time past, repeatedly requesting the company to throw out six- 
pence between them. 

Two other sporting young fellows had now joined the company; 
and as by this time claret began to have rather a mawkish taste, 
whiskv-and-water was ordered, which was drunk upon the perron 
before the house, whither the whole party adjourned, and where for 
many hours we delightfully tossed for sixpences — a noble and fasci- 
nating sport. Nor would these remarkable events have been narrated, 
had I not received express permission from the gentlemen of the 
party to record all that was said and done. Who knows but, a thou- 



22 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK, 

sand years hence, some antiquary or historian may find a moral in 
this description of the amusement of the British youth at the present 
enlightened time ? 

HOT LOBSTER. 

P.S. — You take a lobster, about three feet long if possible, 
remove the shell, cut or break the flesh of the fish in pieces not too 
small. Some one else meanwhile makes a mixture of mustard, 
vinegar, catsup, and lots of cayenne pepper. You produce a 
machine called a despatcher, which has a spirit-lamp under it that is 
usually illuminated with whisky. The lobster, the sauce, and near 
half a pound of butter are placed in the despatcher, which is imme- 
diately closed. When boiling, the mixture is stirred up, the lobster 
being sure to heave about in the pan in a convulsive manner, while 
it emits a remarkably rich and agreeable odour through the apart- 
ment. A glass and a half of sherry is now thrown into the pan, and 
the contents served out hot, and eaten by the company. Porter is 
commonly drunk, and whisky-punch afterwards, and the dish is fit 
for an emperor. 

N.B. — You are recommended not to hurry yourself in getting up 
the next morning, and may take soda-water with advantage. — Pro- 
^itum est. 



( 2 3 ) 



CHAPTER II. 

A COUNTRY-HOUSE IN KILDARE — SKETCHES OF AN IRISH FAMILY 

AND FARM. 

It had been settled among my friends, I don't know for what parti- 
cular reason, that the Agricultural Show at Cork was an exhibition I 
was specially bound to see. When, therefore, a gentleman to whom 
I had brought a letter of introduction kindly offered me a seat in his 
carriage, which was to travel by short days' journeys to that city, I 
took an abrupt farewell of Pat the waiter, and some other friends in 
Dublin : proposing to renew our acquaintance, however, upon some 
future day. 

We started then one fine afternoon on the road from Dublin 
to Naas, which is the main southern road from the capital to 
Munster, and met, in the course of the ride of a score of miles, a 
dozen of coaches very heavily loaded, and bringing passengers to the 
city. The exit from Dublin this way is not much more elegant than 
the outlet by way of Kingstown : for though the great branches of 
the city appear flourishing enough as yet, the small outer ones are in 
a sad state of decay. Houses drop off here and there, and dwindle 
wofully in size ; we are got into the back -premises of the seemingly 
prosperous place, and it looks miserable, careless, and deserted. We 
passed through a street which was thriving once, but has fallen since 
into a sort of decay, to judge outwardly, — St. Thomas' Street. 
Emmett was hanged in the midst of it. And on pursuing the line of 
street, and crossing the Great Canal, you come presently to a fine tall 
square building in the outskirts of the town, which is no more nor less 
than Kilmainham Gaol, or Castle. Poor Emmett is the Irish darling 
still — his history is on every book-stall in the city, and yonder trim- 
looking brick gaol a spot where Irishmen may go and pray. Many a 
martyr of theirs has appeared and died in front of it, — found guilty of 
" wearing of the green." 

There must be a fine view from the gaol windows, for we presently 
come to a great stretch of "brilliant green country, leaving the Dublin 
hills lying to the left, picturesque in their outline, and of wonderful 



24 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

colour. It seems to me to be quite a different colour to that in 
England — different- shaped clouds — different shadows and lights. The 
country is well tilled, well peopled ; the hay-harvest on the ground, 
and the people taking advantage of the sunshine to gather it in ; but 
in spite of everything, — green meadows, white villages and sunshine, 
— the place has a sort of sadness in the look of it. 

The first town we passed, as appears by reference to the Guide- 
book, is the little town of Rathcoole ; but in the space of three days 
Rathcoole has disappeared from my memory, with the exception of 
a little low building which the village contains, and where are the 
quarters of the Irish constabulary. Nothing can be finer than the 
trim, orderly, and soldierlike appearance of this splendid corps of men. 

One has glimpses all along the road of numerous gentlemen's 
places, looking extensive and prosperous, of a few mills by streams 
here and there ; but though the streams run still, the mill-wheels are 
idle for the chief part ; and the road passes more than one long low 
village, looking bare and poor, but neat and whitewashed : it seems 
as if the inhabitants were determined to put a decent look upon their 
poverty. One or two villages there were evidently appertaining to 
gentlemen's seats ; these are smart enough, especially that of Johns- 
town, near Lord Mayo's fine domain, where the houses are of the 
Gothic sort, with pretty porches, creepers, and railings. Noble purple 
hills to the left and right keep up, as it were, an accompaniment to 
the road. 

As for the town of Naas, the first after Dublin that I have seen, 
what can be said of it but that it looks poor, mean, and yet somehow 
cheerful ? There was a little bustle in the small shops, a few cars 
were jingling along the broadest street of the town — some sort of 
dandies and military individuals were lolling about right and left ; 
and I saw a fine court-house, where the assizes of Kildare county 
are held. 

But by far the finest, and I think the most extensive edifice in 
Naas, was a haystack in the inn-yard, the proprietor of which did not 
fail to make me remark its size and splendour. It was of such 
dimensions as to strike a cockney with respect and pleasure ; and 
here standing just as the new crops were coming in, told a tale of 
opulent thrift and good husbandry. Are there many more such hay- 
stacks, I wonder, in Ireland ? The crops along the road seemed 
healthy, though rather light : wheat and oats plenty, and especially 



FIRST SYMPTOMS OF WANT. 25 

flourishing; hay and clover not so good; and turnips (let the im- 
portant remark be taken at its full value) almost entirely wanting. 

The little town, as they call it, of Kilcullen, tumbles down a hill 
and struggles up another ; the two being here picturesquely divided 
by the Liffey, over which goes an antique bridge. It boasts, more- 
over, of a portion of an abbey wall, and a piece of round tower, both 
on the hill summit, and to be seen (says the Guide-book) for many 
miles round. Here we saw the first public evidences of the distress 
of the country. There was no trade in the little place, and but few 
people to be seen, except a crowd round a meal-shop, where meal is 
distributed once a week by the neighbouring gentry. There must 
have been some hundreds of persons waiting about the doors ; women 
for the most part : some of their children were to be found loitering 
about the bridge much farther up the street : but it was curious to 
note, amongst these undeniably starving people, how healthy their 
looks were. Going a little farther we saw women pulling weeds and 
nettles in the hedges, on which dismal sustenance the poor creatures 
live, having no bread, no potatoes, no work. Well ! these women did 
not look thinner or more unhealthy than many a well-fed person. A 
company of English lawyers, now, look more cadaverous than these 
starving creatures. 

Stretching away from Kilcullen bridge, for a couple of miles or 
more, near the fine house and plantations of the Latouche family, is 
to be seen a much prettier sight, I think, than the finest park and 
mansion in the world. This is a tract of excessively green land, 
dotted over with brilliant white cottages, each with its couple of trim 
acres of garden, where you see thick potato-ridges covered with 
blossom, great blue plots of comfortable cabbages and such pleasant 
plants of the poor man's garden. Two or three years since, the land 
was a marshy common, which had never since the days of the Deluge 
fed any being bigger than a snipe, and into which the poor people 
descended, draining and cultivating and rescuing the marsh from the 
water, and raising their cabins and setting up their little inclosures of 
two or three acres upon the land which they had thus created. 
" Many of 'em has passed months in jail for that," said my informant 
(a. groom on the back seat of my host's phaeton) : for it appears that 
certain gentlemen in the neighbourhood looked upon the titles of these 
new colonists with some jealousy, and would have been glad to depose 
them ; but there were some better philosophers among the surrounding 



26 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

gentry, who advised that instead of discouraging the settlers it would 
be best to help them ; and the consequence has been, that there are 
now two hundred flourishing little homesteads upon this rescued land, 
and as many families in comfort and plenty. 

Just at the confines of this pretty rustic republic, our pleasant 
afternoon's drive ended ; and I must begin this tour with a monstrous 
breach of confidence, by first describing what I saw. 

Well, then, we drove through a neat lodge-gate, with no stone 
lions or supporters, but riding well on its hinges, and looking fresh 
and white ; and passed by a lodge, not Gothic, but decorated with 
flowers and evergreens, with clean windows, and a sound slate roof ; 
and then went over a trim road, through a few acres of grass, adorned 
with plenty of young firs and other healthy trees, under which were 
feeding a dozen of fine cows or more. The road led up to a house, 
or rather a congregation of rooms, built seemingly to suit the owner's 
convenience, and increasing with his increasing wealth, or whim, or 
family. This latter is as plentiful as everything else about the place ; 
and as the arrows increased, the good-natured, lucky father has been 
forced to multiply the quivers. 

First came out a young gentleman, the heir of the house, who, after 
greeting his papa, began examining the horses with much interest ; 
whilst three or four servants, quite neat and well dressed, and, wonderful 
to say, without any talking, began to occupy themselves with the 
carriage, the passengers, and the trunks. Meanwhile, the owner of 
the house had gone into the hall, which is snugly furnished as a 
morning-room, and where one, two, three young ladies came in to 
greet him. The young ladies having concluded their embraces, per- 
formed (as I am bound to say from experience, both in London and 
Paris,) some very appropriate and well-finished curtsies to the strangers 
arriving. And these three young persons were presently succeeded by 
some still younger, who came without any curtsies at all; but, bounding 
and jumping, and shouting out " Papa " at the top of their voices, 
they fell forthwith upon that worthy gentleman's person, taking 
possession this of his knees, that of his arms, that of his whiskers, as 
fancy or taste might dictate. 

" Are there any more of you ? " says he, with perfect good-humour ; 
and, in fact, it appeared that there were some more in the nursery, as 
we subsequently had occasion to see. 

Well, this large happy family are lodged in a house than which 



A WATERFORD EPISODE. vj 

a prettier or more comfortable is not to be seen even in England \ of 
the furniture of which it may be in confidence said, that each article 
is only made to answer one purpose : — thus, that chairs are never 
called upon to exercise the versatility of their genius by propping up 
windows; that chests of drawers are not obliged to move .their 
unwieldy persons in order to act as locks to doors ; that the windows 
are not variegated by paper, or adorned with wafers, as in other places 
which I have seen : in fact, that the place is just as comfortable as a 
place can be. 

And if these comforts and reminiscences of three days' date are 
enlarged upon at some length, the reason is simply this : — this is 
written at what is supposed to be the best inn at one of the best towns 
of Ireland, Waterford. Dinner is just over ; it is assize-week, and the 
table-cThote was surrounded for the chief part by English attorneys — 
the cyouncillors (as the bar are pertinaciously called) dining upstairs 
in private. Well, on going to the public room and being about to 
lay down my hat on the sideboard, I was obliged to pause — out of 
regard to a fine thick coat of dust which had been kindly left to 
gather for some days past I should think, and which it seemed a 
shame to displace. Yonder is a chair basking quietly in the sun- 
shine ; some round object has evidently reposed upon it (a hat or 
plate probably), for you see a clear circle of black horsehair in the 
middle of the chair, and dust all round it. Not one of those dirty 
napkins that the four waiters carry, would wipe away the grime from 
the chair, and take to itself a little dust more ! The people in 
the room are shouting out for the waiters, who cry, " Yes, sir," 
peevishly, and don't come ; but stand bawling and jangling, and 
calling each other names, at the sideboard. The dinner is plentiful » 
and nasty — raw ducks, raw pease, on a crumpled tablecloth, over which 
a waiter has just spirted a pint of obstreperous cider. The windows 
are open, to give free view of a crowd of old beggar-women, and of a 
fellow playing a cursed Irish pipe. Presently this delectable apart- 
ment fills with choking peat-smoke ; and on asking what is the cause 
of this agreeable addition to the pleasures of the place, you are told 
that they are lighting a fire in a back-room. 

Why should lighting a fire in a back-room fill a whole enormous 
house with smoke ? Why should four waiters stand and jaw and 
gesticulate among themselves, instead of waiting on the guests ? 
Why should ducks be raw, and dust lie quiet in places where a 



28 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

hundred people pass daily ? All these points make one think very 
regretfully of neat, pleasant, comfortable, prosperous H — • — town, 
where the meat was cooked, and the rooms were clean, and the 
servants didn't talk. Nor need it be said here, that it is as cheap to 
have a house clean as dirty, and that a raw leg of mutton costs 
exactly the same sum as one cuit a point. And by this moral earnestly 

hoping that all Ireland may profit, let us go back to H , and the 

sights to be seen there. 

There is no need to particularize the chairs and tables any farther, 
nor to say what sort of conversation and claret we had ; nor to set 
down the dishes served at dinner. If an Irish gentleman does not 
give you a more hearty welcome than an Englishman, at least he has 
a more hearty manner of welcoming you ; and while the latter reserves 
his fun and humour (if he possess those qualities) for his particular 
friends, the former is ready to laugh and talk his best with all the 
world, and give way entirely to his mood. And it would be a good 
opportunity here for a man who is clever at philosophizing to expound 
various theories upon the modes of hospitality practised in various 
parts of Europe. In a couple of hours' talk, an Englishman will give 
you his notions on trade, politics, the crops ; the last run with the 
hounds, or the weather : it requires a long sitting, and a bottle of wine 
at the least, to induce him to laugh cordially, or to speak unreservedly ; 
and if you joke with him before you know him, he will assuredly set 
you down as a low impertinent fellow. In two hours, and over a 
pipe, a German will be quite ready to let loose the easy floodgates of 
his sentiment, and confide to you many of the secrets of his soft heart. 
In two hours a Frenchman will say a hundred and twenty smart, 
witty, brilliant, false things, and will care for you as much then as he 
would if you saw him every day for twenty years — that is, not one 
single straw j and in two hours an Irishman will have allowed his 
jovial humour to unbutton, and gambolled and frolicked to his heart's 
content. Which of these, putting Monsieicr out of the question, will 
stand by his friend with the most constancy, and maintain his steady 
wish to serve him ? That is a question which the Englishman (and I 
think with a little of his ordinary cool assumption) is disposed to 
decide in his own favour ; but it is clear that for a stranger the Irish 
ways are the pleasantest, for here he is at once made happy and at 
home ; or at ease rather : for home is a strong word, and implies much 
more than any stranger can expect, or even desire to claim. 



A HOME SCENE. 29 

Nothing could be more delightful to witness than the evident 
affection which the children and parents bore to one another, 
and the cheerfulness and happiness of their family-parties. The 
father of one lad went with a party of his friends and family on 
a pleasure-party, in a handsome coach-and-four. The little fellow 
sat on the coach-box and played with the whip very wistfully for 
some time : the sun was shining, the horses came out in bright 
harness, with glistening coats ; one of the girls brought a geranium to 
stick in papa's button-hole, who was to drive. But although there 
was room in the coach, and though papa said he should go if he 
liked, and though the lad longed to go- — as who wouldn't ? — he 
jumped off the box, and said he would not go : mamma would like 
him to stop at home and keep his sister company ; and so down he 
went like a hero. Does this story appear trivial to any one who reads 
it ? If so, he is a pompous fellow, whose opinion is not worth 
the having ; or he has no children of his own ; or he has. forgotten 
the day when he was a child himself; or he has never repented of the 
surly selfishness with which he treated brothers and sisters, after 
the habit of young English gentlemen. 

" That's a list that uncle keeps of his children," said the same 
young fellow, seeing his uncle reading a paper ; and to understand 
this joke, it must be remembered that the children of the gentleman 
called uncle came into the breakfast-room by half-dozens. " That's a 
rum fellow," said the eldest of these latter to me, as his father went 
out of the room, evidently thinking his papa was the greatest wit and 
wonder in the whole world. And a great merit, as it appeared to me, 
on the part of these worthy parents was, that they consented not only to 
make, but to take jokes from their young ones : nor was the parental 
authority in the least weakened by this kind familiar intercourse. 

A word with regard to the ladies so far. Those I have seen 
appear to the full as well educated and refined, and far more frank 
and cordial, than the generality of the fair creatures on the other side 
of the Channel. I have not heard anything about poetry, to be sure, 
and in only one house have seen an album ; but I have heard some 
capital music, of an excellent family sort — that sort which is used, 
namely, to set young people dancing, which they have done merrily 
for some nights. In respect of drinking, among the gentry teetotalism 
does not, thank heaven ! as yet appear to prevail ; but although the 
claret has been invariably good, there has been no improper use of 



3o THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

it.* Let all English be recommended to be very careful of whisky, 
which experience teaches to be a very deleterious drink. Natives say 
that it is wholesome, and may be sometimes seen to use it with 
impunity ; but the whisky-fever is naturally more fatal to strangers 
than inhabitants of the country ; and whereas an Irishman will some- 
times imbibe a half-dozen tumblers of the poison, two glasses will be 
often found to cause headaches, heartburns, and fevers to a person 
newly arrived in the country. The said whisky is always to be 
had for the asking, but is not produced at the bettermost sort of tables. 

Before setting out on our second day's journey, we had time to 

accompany the well-pleased owner of H town over some of his 

fields and out-premises. Nor can there be a pleasanter sight to owner 

or stranger. Mr. P farms four hundred acres of land about his 

house ; and employs on this estate no less than a hundred and ten 
persons. He says there is full work for every one of them ; and to 
see the elaborate state of cultivation in which the land was, it is easy 
to understand how such an agricultural regiment were employed. The 
estate is like a well-ordered garden : we walked into a huge field of 
potatoes, and the landlord made us remark that there was not a single 
weed between the furrows ; and the whole formed a vast flower-bed 
of a score of acres. Every bit of land up to the hedge-side was ferti- 
lised and full of produce : the space left for the plough having after- 
wards been gone over, and yielding its fullest proportion of " fruit." 
In a turnip-field were a score or more of women and children, who 
were marching through the ridges, removing the young plants where 
two or three had grown together, and leaving only the most healthy. 
Every individual root in the field was thus the object of culture; and 
the owner said that this extreme cultivation answered his purpose, and 
that the employment of all these hands, (the women and children earn 
6d. and Sd. a day all the year round,) which gained him some reputa- 
tion as a philanthropist, brought him profit as a farmer too ; for his 
crops were the best that land could produce. He has further the 
advantage of a large stock for manure, and does everything for the 
land which art can do. 

Here we saw several experiments in manuring : an acre of turnips 
prepared with bone-dust ; another with " Murray's Composition," 

* The only instances of intoxication that I have heard of as yet, have been on 
the part of two " cyouncillors," undeniably drunk and noisy yesterday after the 
bar dinner at Waterford. 



A KILDARE FARM. 31 

whereof I do not pretend to know the ingredients ; another with a 
new manure called guano. As far as turnips and a first year's crop 
went, the guano carried the day. The plants on the guano acre 
looked to be three weeks in advance of their neighbours, and were 
extremely plentiful and healthy. I went to see this field two months 
after the above passage was written : the guano acre still kept the 
lead ; the bone-dust ran guano very hard ; and composition was 
clearly distanced. / 

Behind the house is a fine village of corn and hayricks, and a 
street of out-buildings, where all the work of the farm is prepared. 
Here were numerous people coming with pails for buttermilk, which 
the good-natured landlord made over to them. A score of men or 
more were busied about the place ; some at a grindstone, others at a 
forge — other fellows busied in the cart-houses and stables, all of which 
were as neatly kept as in the best farm in England. A little further 
on was a flower-garden, a kitchen-garden, a hot-house just building, 
a kennel of fine pointers and setters ; — indeed a noble feature of 
country neatness, thrift, and plenty. 

We went into the cottages and gardens of several of Mr. P 's 

labourers, which were all so neat that I could not help fancying 
they were pet cottages erected under the landlord's own superinten- 
dence, and ornamented to his order. But he declared that it was not 
so ; that the only benefit his labourers got from him was constant 
work, and a house rent-free ; and that the neatness of the gardens 
and dwellings was of their own doing. By making them a present of 
the house, he said, he made them a present of the pig and live stock, 
with which almost every Irish cotter pays his rent, so that each work- 
man could have a bit of meat for his support ; — would that all 
labourers in the empire had as much ! With regard to the neatness 
of the houses, the best way to ensure this, he said, was for the 
master constantly to visit them — to awaken as much emulation as he 
could amongst the cottagers, so that each should make his place as 
good as his neighbour's — and to take them good-humouredly to task 
if they failed in the requisite care. 

And so this pleasant day's visit ended. A more practical person 
would have seen, no doubt, and understood much more than a mere 
citizen could, whose pursuits have been very different from those 
noble and useful ones here spoken of. But a man has no call to be 
a judge of turnips or live stock, in order to admire such an establish- 



32 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

ment as this, and heartily to appreciate the excellence of it. There 
are some happy organisations in the world which possess the great 
virtue of prosperity. It implies cheerfulness, simplicity, shrewdness, 
perseverance, honesty, good health. See how, before the good- 
humoured resolution of such characters, ill-luck gives way, and for- 
tune assumes their own smiling complexion ! Such men grow rich 
without driving a single hard bargain ; their condition being to make 
others prosper along with themselves. Thus, his very charity, another 
informant tells me, is one of the causes of- my host's good fortune. 
He might have three pounds a year from each of forty cottages, but 
instead prefers a hundred healthy workmen; or he might have a 
fourth of the number of workmen, and a farm yielding a produce 
proportionately less ; but instead of saving the money of their wages, 
prefers a farm the produce of which, as I have heard from a gentle- 
man whom I take to be good authority, is unequalled elsewhere. 

Besides the cottages, we visited a pretty school, where children 
of an exceeding smallness were at their work, — the children of the 
Catholic peasantry. The few Protestants of the district do not attend 
the national-school, nor learn their alphabet or their multiplication- 
table in company with their little Roman Catholic brethren. The 
clergyman, who lives hard by the gate of H town, in his commu- 
nication with his parishioners cannot fail to see how much misery is 
relieved and how much good is done by his neighbour ; but though 
the two gentlemen are on good terms, the clergyman will not break 
bread with his Catholic fellow-Christian. There can be no harm, I 
hope, in mentioning this fact, as it is rather a public than a private 
matter ; and, unfortunately, it is only a stranger that is surprised by 
such a circumstance, which is quite familiar to residents of the 
country. There are Catholic inns and Protestant inns in the towns ; 
Catholic coaches and Protestant coaches on the roads ; nay, in the 
North, I have since heard of a High Church coach and a Low Church 
coach adopted by travelling Christians of either party. 




( 33 ) 



CHAPTER III. 

FROM CARLOW TO WATERFORD. 

The next morning being fixed for the commencement of our journey 
towards Waterford, a carriage made its appearance in due time before 
the hall-door : an amateur stage-coach, with four fine horses, that were 
to carry us to Cork. The crew of the " drag," for the present, con- 
sisted of two young ladies, and two who will not be old, please 
heaven ! for these thirty years ; three gentlemen whose collected 
weights might amount to fifty-four stone ; and one of smaller propor- 
tions, being as yet only twelve years old : to these were added a 
couple of grooms and a lady's-maid. Subsequently we took in a 
dozen or so more passengers, who did not seem in the slightest degree 
to inconvenience the coach or the horses; and thus was formed a 
tolerably numerous and merry party. The governor took the reins, 
with his geranium in his button-hole, and the place on the box was 
quarrelled for without ceasing, and taken by turns. 

Our day's journey lay through a country more picturesque, though 
by no means so prosperous and well cultivated as the district through 
which we had passed on our drive from Dublin. This trip carried us 
through the county of Carlow and the town of that name : a wretched 
place enough, with a fine court-house, and a couple of fine churches : 
the Protestant church a noble structure, and the Catholic cathedral 
said to be built after some continental model. The Catholics point 
to the structure with considerable pride : it was the first, I believe, of 
the many handsome cathedrals for their worship which have been 
built of late years in this country by the noble contributions of the 
poor man's penny, and by the untiring energies and sacrifices of the 
clergy. Bishop Doyle, the founder of the church, has the place of 
honour within it ; nor, perhaps, did any Christian pastor ever merit 
the affection of his flock more than that great and high-minded man. 
He was the best champion the Catholic Church and cause ever 
had in Ireland : in learning,. and admirable kindness and virtue, the 
best example to the- clergy of his. religion : and if the country is now 
filled with schools, >wheife the humblest peasant in it can have the 



34 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

benefit of a liberal and wholesome education, it owes this great boon 
mainly to his noble exertions, and to the spirit which they awakened. 

As for the architecture of the cathedral, I do not fancy a pro- 
fessional man would find much to praise in it ; it seems to me over- 
loaded with ornaments, nor were its innumerable spires and pinnacles 
the more pleasing to the eye because some of them were out of the 
perpendicular. The interior is quite plain, not to say bare and 
unfinished. Many of the chapels in the country that I have since 
seen are in a similar condition ; for when the walls are once raised, 
the enthusiasm of the subscribers to the building seems somewhat 
characteristically to grow cool, and you enter at a porch that would 
suit a palace, with an interior scarcely more decorated than a barn. 
A wide large floor, some confession-boxes against the blank walls 
here and there, with some humble pictures at the " stations," and the 
statue, under a mean canopy of red woollen stuff, were the chief 
furniture of the cathedral. 

The severe homely features of the good bishop were not very 
favourable subjects for Mr. Hogan's chisel; but a figure of prostrate, 
weeping Ireland, kneeling by the prelate's side, and for whom he is 
imploring protection, has much beauty. In the chapels of Dublin 
and Cork some of this artist's works may be seen, and his countrymen 
are exceedingly proud of him. 

Connected with the Catholic cathedral is a large tumble-down- 
looking divinity college : there are upwards of a hundred students 
here, and the college is licensed to give degrees in arts as well as 
divinity ; at least so the officer of the church said, as he showed us 
the place through the bars of the sacristy-windows, in which apart- 
ment may be seen sundry crosses, a pastoral letter of Dr. Doyle, and 
a number of ecclesiastical vestments formed of laces, poplins, and 
velvets, handsomely laced with gold. There is a convent by the side 
of the cathedral, and, of course, a parcel of beggars all about, and 
indeed all over the town, profuse in their prayers and invocations of 
the Lord, and whining flatteries of the persons whom they address. 
One wretched old tottering hag began whining the Lord's Prayer as 
a proof of her sincerity, and blundered in the very midst of it, and 
left us thoroughly disgusted after the very first sentence. 

It was market-day in the town, which is tolerably full of poor- 
looking shops, the streets being thronged with donkey-carts, and 
people eager to barter their small wares. Here and there were 



LEIGH LIN BRIDGE. 35 

picture-stalls, with huge hideous-coloured engravings of the Saints ; 
and indeed the objects of barter upon the banks of the clear bright 
river Barrow seemed scarcely to be of more value than the articles 
which change hands, as one reads of, in a town of African huts and 
traders on the banks of the Quorra. Perhaps the very bustle and 
cheerfulness of the people served only, to a Londoner's eyes, to make 
it look the more miserable. It seems as if they had no right to be 
eager about such a parcel of wretched rags and trifles as were exposed 
to sale. 

There are some old towers of a castle here, looking finely from 
the river ; and near the town is a grand modem residence belonging 
to Colonel Bruen, with an oak-park on one side of the road, and a 
deer-park on the other. These retainers of the Colonel's lay in their 
rushy-green inclosures, in great numbers and seemingly in flourishing 
condition. 

The road from Carlow to Leighlin Bridge is exceedingly beautiful : 
noble purple hills rising on either side, and the broad silver Barrow 
flowing through rich meadows of that astonishing verdure which is 
only to be seen in this country. Here and there was a country-house, 
or a tall mill by a stream-side : but the latter buildings were for the 
most part empty, the gaunt windows gaping without glass, and their 
great wheels idle. Leighlin Bridge, lying up and down a hill by the 
river, contains a considerable number of pompous-looking warehouses, 
that looked for the most part to be doing no more business than the 
mills on the Carlow road, but stood by the roadside staring at the 
coach as it were, and basking in the sun, swaggering, idle, insolvent, 
and out-at-elbows. There are one or two very pretty, modest, com- 
fortable-looking country-places about Leighlin Bridge, and on the 
road thence to a miserable village called the Royal Oak, a beggarly 
sort of bustling place. 

Here stands a dilapidated hotel and posting-house : and indeed 
on every road, as yet, I have been astonished at the great movement 
and stir ; — the old coaches being invariably crammed, cars jingling 
about equally full, and no want of gentlemen's carriages to exercise 
the horses of the "Royal Oak " and similar establishments. In the 
time of the rebellion, the landlord of this "Royal Oak," a great 
character in those parts, was a fierce United Irishman. One day it 
happened that Sir John Anderson came to the inn, and was eager for 
horses on. The landlord, who knew Sir John to be a Tory, vowed 



36 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

and swore he had no horses ; that the judges had the last going to 
Kilkenny ; that the yeomanry had carried off the best of them ; that 
he could not give a horse for love or money, " Poor Lord Edward ! " 
said Sir John, sinking down in a chair, and clasping his hands, " my 
poor dear misguided friend, and must you die for the loss of a few 
hours and the want of a pair of horses ? " 

" Lord What ? " says the landlord 

" Lord Edward Fitzgerald," replied Sir John. " The Government 
has seized his papers, and got scent of his hiding-place. If I can't 
get to him before two hours, Sirr will have him." 

" My dear Sir John," cried the landlord, " it's not two horses but 
it's eight I'll give you, and may the judges go hang for me ! Here, 
Larry ! Tim ! First and second pair for Sir John Anderson ; and 
long life to you, Sir John, and the Lord reward you for your good 
deed this day ! " 

Sir John, my informant told me, had invented this predicament 
of Lord Edward's in order to get the horses ; and by way of 
corroborating the whole story, pointed out an old chaise which stood 
at the inn-door with its window broken, a great crevice in the panel, 
some little wretches crawling underneath the wheels, and two huge 
blackguards lolling against the pole. "And that," says he, "is no 
doubt the very postchaise Sir John Anderson had." It certainly 
looked ancient enough. 

Of course, as we stopped for a moment in the place, troops of 
slatternly, ruffianly-looking fellows assembled round the carriage, dirty 
heads peeped out of all the dirty windows, beggars came forward 
with a joke and a prayer, and troops of children raised their shouts 
and halloos. I confess, with regard to the beggars, that I have never 
yet had the slightest sentiment of compassion for the very oldest or 
dirtiest of them, or been inclined to give them a penny : they come 
crawling round you with lying prayers and loathsome compliments, 
that make the stomach turn ; they do not even disguise that they are 
lies; for, refuse them, and the wretches turn off with a laugh and 
a joke, a miserable grinning cynicism that creates distrust and indiffer- 
ence, and must be, one would think, the very best way to close the 
purse, not to open it, for objects so unworthy. 

How do all these people live ? one can't help wondering ; — these 
multifarious vagabonds, without work or workhouse, or means of 
subsistence ? The Irish Poor Law Report says that there are twelve 



A COUNTRY-HOUSE. 37 

hundred thousand people in Ireland — a sixth of the population — who 
have no means of livelihood but charity, and whom the State, or 
individual members of it, must maintain. How can the State support 
such an enormous burden ; or the twelve hundred thousand be 
supported ? What a strange history it would be, could one but get it 
true, — that of the manner in which a score of these beggars have 
maintained themselves for a fortnight past ! 

Soon after quitting the " Royal Oak," our road branches off to the 
hospitable house where our party, consisting of a dozen persons, was 
to be housed and fed for the night. Fancy the look which an English 
gentleman of moderate means would assume, at being called on to 
receive such a company ! A pretty road of a couple of miles, thickly 
grown with ash and oak trees, under which the hats of coach- 
passengers suffered some danger, leads to the house of D . A 

young son of the house, on a white pony, was on the look-out, and 
great cheering and shouting took place among the young people as we 
came in sight. 

Trotting away by the carriage-side, he brought us through a gate 
with a pretty avenue of trees leading to the, pleasure-grounds of the 
house — a handsome building commanding noble views of river, 
mountains, and plantations. Our entertainer only rents the place ; 
so I may say, without any imputation against him, that the house was 
by no means so handsome within as without, — not that the want of 
finish in the interior made our party the less merry, or the host's 
entertainment less hearty and cordial. 

The gentleman who built and owns the house, like many other 
proprietors in Ireland, found his mansion too expensive for his 
means, and has relinquished it. I asked what his income might be, 
and no wonder that he was compelled to resign his house ; which a 
man with four times the income in England would scarcely venture 
to inhabit. There were numerous sitting-rooms below; a large suite 
of rooms above,, in which our large party, with their servants, dis- 
appeared without any seeming inconvenience, and which already 
accommodated a family of at least a dozen persons, and a numerous 
train of domestics. There was a great court-yard surrounded by 
capital offices, with stabling and coach-houses sufficient for a half- 
dozen of country gentlemen. An English squire of ten thousand a 
year might live in such a place — the original owner, I am told, had 
not many more hundreds. 



38 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



Our host has wisely turned the chief part of the pleasure-ground 
round the house into a farm ; nor did the land look a bit the worse, 
as I thought, for having rich crops of potatoes growing in place of 
grass, and fine plots of waving wheat and barley. The care, skill, and 
neatness everywhere exhibited, and the immense luxuriance of the 
crops, could not fail to strike even a cockney ; and one of our party, 
a very well-known, practical farmer, told me that there was at least 
five hundred pounds' worth of produce upon the little estate of some 
sixty acres, of which only five-and- twenty were under the plough. 




As at H town, on the previous day, several men and women 

appeared sauntering in the grounds, and as the master came up, 
asked for work, or sixpence, or told a story of want. There are 
lodge-gates at both ends of the demesne ; but it appears the good- 
natured practice of the country admits a beggar as well as any other 
visitor. To a couple our landlord gave money, to another a little job 
of work ; another he sent roughly out of the premises : and I could 
judge thus what a continual tax upon the Irish gentleman these 
travelling paupers must be, of whom his ground is never free. 

There, loitering about the stables and out-houses, were several 
people who seemed to have acquired a sort of right to be there : 



. HANGERS-ON. 39 

women and children who had a claim upon the buttermilk ; men 
who did an odd job now and then ; loose hangers-on of the family : 
and in the lodging-houses and inns I have entered, the same sort of 
ragged vassals are to be found ; in a house however poor, you are 
sure to see some poorer dependant who is a stranger, taking a meal 
of potatoes in the kitchen ; a Tim or Mike loitering hard by, ready 
to run on a message, or carry a bag. This is written, for instance, at 
a lodging over a shop at Cork. There sits in the shop a poor old 
fellow quite past work, but who totters up and down stairs to the 
lodgers, and does what little he can for his easily-won bread. There 
is another fellow outside who is sure to make his bow to anybody 
issuing from the lodging, and ask if his honour wants an errand done ? 
Neither class of such dependants exist with us. What housekeeper 
in London is there will feed an old man of seventy that's good for 
nothing, or encourage such a disreputable hanger-on as yonder 
shuffling, smiling cad? 

Nor did Mr. M 's " irregulars " disappear with the day ; for 

when, after a great deal of merriment, and kind, happy dancing and 
romping of young people, the fineness of the night suggested the pro- 
priety of smoking a certain cigar (it is never more acceptable than at 
that season), the young squire voted that we should adjourn to the 
stables for the purpose, where accordingly the cigars were discussed. 
There were still the inevitable half-dozen hangers-on : one came 
grinning with a lantern, all nature being in universal blackness except 
his grinning face ; another ran obsequiously to the stables to show a 
favourite mare — I think it was a mare — though it may have been a 
mule, and your humble servant not much the wiser. The cloths were 
taken off ; the fellows with the candles crowded about ; and the 
young squire bade me admire the beauty of her fore-leg, which I did 
with the greatest possible gravity. " Did you ever see such a fore-leg 
as that in your life ? " says the young squire, and further discoursed 
upon the horse's points, the amateur grooms joining in chorus. 

There was another young squire of our party, a pleasant gentle- 
manlike young fellow, who danced as prettily as any Frenchman, and 
who had ridden over from a neighbouring house : as I went to bed, 

the two lads were arguing whether young Squire B should go home 

or stay at D that night. There was a bed for him — there was a 

bed for everybody, it seemed, and a kind welcome too. How 
different was all this to the ways of a severe English house ! 



40 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

Next morning the whole of our merry party assembled round a 
long, jovial breakfast- table, stored with all sorts of good things ; and 
the biggest and jovialest man of all, who had just come in fresh from 
a walk in the fields, and vowed that he was as hungry as a hunter, 
and was cutting some slices out of an inviting ham on the side-table, 
suddenly let fall his knife and fork with dismay. " Sure, John, don't 
you know it's Friday?" cried a lady from the table ; and back John 
came with a most lugubrious queer look on his jolly face, and fell to 
work upon bread-and-butter, as resigned as possible, amidst no small 
laughter, as may be well imagined. On this I was bound, as a Pro- 
testant, to eat a large slice of pork, and discharged that duty nobly, 
and with much self-sacrifice. 

The famous " drag " which had brought us so far, seemed to be as 
hospitable and elastic as the house which we now left, for the coach 
accommodated, inside and out, a considerable party from the house ; 
and we took our road leisurely, in a cloudless, scorching day, towards 
Waterford. The first place we passed through was the little town of 
Gowran, near which is a grand, well-ordered park, belonging to Lord 
Clifden, and where his mother resides, with whose beautiful face, in 
Lawrence's pictures, every reader must be familiar. The kind English 
lady has done the greatest good in the neighbourhood, it is said, and 
the little town bears marks of her beneficence, in its neatness, prettiness, 
and order. Close by the church there are the ruins of a fine old 
abbey here, and a still finer one a few miles on, at Thomastown, most 
picturesquely situated amidst trees and meadow, on the river Nore. 
The place within, however, is dirty and ruinous — the same wretched 
suburbs, the same squalid congregation of beggarly loungers, that are 
to be seen elsewhere. The monastic ruin is very fine, and the road 
hence to Thomastown rich with varied cultivation and beautiful 
verdure, pretty gentlemen's mansions shining among the trees on 
either side of the way. There was one place along this rich tract that 
looked very strange and ghastly — a huge old pair of gate pillars, 
flanked by a ruinous lodge, and a wide road winding for a mile up a 
hill. There had been a park once, but all the trees were gone ; thistles 
were growing in the yellow sickly* land, and rank thin grass on the 
road. Far away you saw in this desolate tract a ruin of a house : 
many a butt of claret has been emptied there, no doubt, and many a 
merry party come out with hound and horn. But what strikes the 
Englishman with wonder is not so much, perhaps, that an owner of 



BALLYHALE. 



4i 



the place should have been ruined and a spendthrift, as that the land 
should lie there useless ever since. If one is not successful with us 
another man will be, or another will try, at least. Here lies useless 
a great capital of hundreds of acres of land ; barren, where the 
commonest effort might make it productive, and looking as if for a 
quarter of a century past no soul ever looked or cared for it. You 
might travel five hundred miles through England and not see such a 
spectacle. 

A short distance from Thomastown is another abbey ; and 
presently, after passing through the village of Knocktopher, we came 
to a posting-place called Ballyhale, of the moral aspect of which the 
following scrap taken in the place will give a notion. 

A dirty, old, contented, decrepit idler was lolling in the sun at a 
shop-door, and hundreds of the population of the dirty, old, decrepit, 
contented place were employed in the like way. A dozen of boys 




were playing at pitch-and-toss ; other male and female beggars were 
sitting on a wall looking into a stream ; scores of ragamuffins, of 
course, round the carriage ; -and beggars galore at the door of the 
little ale-house or hotel. A gentleman's carriage changed horses as 
we were baiting here. It was a rich sight to see the cattle, and the 



42 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

way of starting them : " Halloo ! Yoop hoop ! " a dozen ragged 

ostlers and amateurs running by the side of the miserable old horses, 
the postilion shrieking, yelling, and belabouring them with his whip. 
Down goes one horse among the new-laid stones ; the postilion has 
him up with a cut of the whip and a curse, and takes advantage of the 
start caused by the stumble to get the brute into a gallop, and to go 
down the hill. " I know it for a fact," a gentleman of our party says, 
"that no horses ever got out of Ballyhale without an accident of 
some kind." 

" Will your honour like to come and see a big pig ? " here asked 
a man of the above gentleman, well known as a great farmer and 
breeder. We all went to see the big pig, not very fat as yet, but, 
upon my word, it is as big as a pony. The country round is, it 
appears, famous for the breeding of such, especially a district called 
the Welsh mountains, through which we had to pass on our road to 
Waterford. 

This is a curious country to see, and has curious inhabitants : for 
twenty miles there is no gentleman's house : gentlemen dare not live 
there. The place was originally tenanted by a clan of Welshes; 
hence its name ; and they maintain themselves in their occupancy 
of the farms in Tipperary fashion, by simply putting a ball into the 
body of any man who would come to take a farm over any one of 
them. Some of the crops in the fields of the Welsh country seemed 
very good, and the fields well tilled ; but it is common to see, by the 
side of one field that is well cultivated, another that is absolutely 
barren ; and the whole tract is extremely wretched. Appropriate 
histories and reminiscences accompany the traveller : at a chapel near 
Mullinavat is the spot where sixteen policemen were murdered in the 
tithe-campaign ; farther on you come to a limekiln, where the guard 
of a mail-coach was seized and roasted alive. I saw here the first 
hedge-school I have seen : a crowd of half-savage-looking lads and 
girls looked up from their studies in the ditch, their college or lecture- 
room being in a mud cabin hard by. 

And likewise, in the midst of this wild tract, a fellow met us who 
was trudging the road with a fish-basket over his shoulder, and who 
stopped the coach, hailing two of the gentlemen in it by name, both 
of whom seemed to be much amused by his humour. He was a 
handsome rogue, a poacher, or salmon-taker, by profession, and 
presently poured out such a flood of oaths, and made such a 



A VOLUBLE ROGUE. 43 

monstrous display of grinning wit and blackguardism, as I have never 
heard equalled by the best Billingsgate practitioner, and as it would 
be more than useless to attempt to describe. Blessings, jokes, and 
curses trolled off the rascal's lips with a volubility which caused his 
Irish audience to shout with laughter, but which were quite beyond a 
cockney. It was a humour so purely national as to be understood 
by none but natives, I should think. I recollect the same feeling of 
perplexity while sitting, the only Englishman, in a company of jocular 
Scotchmen. They bandied about puns, jokes, imitations, and 
applauded with shrieks of laughter what, I confess, appeared to me 
the most abominable dulness \ nor was the salmon-taker's jocularity 
any better. I think it rather served to frighten than to amuse ; and 
I am not sure but that I looked out for a band of jocular cut-throats 
of this sort to come up at a given guffaw, and playfully rob us all 
round. However, he went away quite peaceably, calling down for 
the party the benediction of a great number of saints, who must have 
been somewhat ashamed to be addressed by such a rascal. 

Presently we caught sight of the valley through which the Suir 
flows, and descended the hill towards it, and went over the thundering 
old wooden bridge to Waterford. 



44 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER IV. 

FROM WATERFORD TO CORK. 

The view of the town from the bridge and the heights above it is 
very imposing ; as is the river both ways. Very large vessels sail up 
almost to the doors of the houses, and the quays are flanked by tall 
red warehouses, that look at a little distance as if a world of business 
might be doing within them. But as you get into the place, not a soul 
is there to greet you, except the usual society of beggars, and a sailor 
or two, or a green-coated policeman sauntering down the broad pave- 
ment. We drove up to the " Coach Inn," a huge, handsome, dirty 
building, of which the discomforts have been pathetically described 
elsewhere. The landlord is a gentleman and considerable horse- 
proprietor, and though a perfectly well-bred, active, and intelligent 
man, far too much of a gentleman to play the host well : at least as an 
Englishman understands that character. 

Opposite the town is a tower of questionable antiquity and 
undeniable ugliness ; for though the inscription says it was built in 
the year one thousand and something, the same document adds that 
it was rebuilt in 1 8 1 9 — to either of which dates the traveller is thus 
welcomed. The quays stretch for a considerable distance along the 
river, poor, patched-windowed, mouldy-looking shops forming the 
basement-storey of most of the houses. We went into one, a jeweller's, 
to make a purchase — it might have been of a gold watch for anything 
the owner knew ; but he was talking with a friend in his back-parlour, 
gave us a look as we entered, allowed us to stand some minutes in 
the empty shop, and at length to walk out without being served. In 
another shop a boy was lolling behind a counter, but could not say 
whether the articles we wanted were to be had ; turned out a heap of 
drawers, and could not find them ; and finally went for the master, 
who could not come. True commercial independence, and an easy 
way enough of life. 

In one of the streets leading from the quay is a large, dingy 
Catholic chapel, of some pretensions within ; but, as usual, there had 



WATERFORD. 45 

been a failure for want of money, and the front of the chapel was 
unfinished, presenting the butt-end of a portico, and walls on which 
the stone coating was to be laid. But a much finer ornament to the 
church than any of the questionable gewgaws which adorned the 
ceiling was the piety, stern, simple, and unaffected, of the people 
within. Their whole soul seemed to be in their prayers, as rich and 
poor knelt indifferently on the flags. There is of course an episcopal 
cathedral, well and neatly kept, and a handsome Bishop's palace : 
near it was a convent of nuns, and a little chapel-bell clinking 
melodiously. I was prepared to fancy something romantic of the 
place ; but as we passed the convent gate, a shoeless slattern of a 
maid opened the door — the most dirty and unpoetical of house- 
maids. 

Assizes were held in the town, and we ascended to the court- 
house through a steep street, a sort of rag-fair, but more villanous 
and miserable than any rag-fair in St. Giles's : the houses and stock 
of the Seven Dials look as if they belonged to capitalists when com- 
pared with the scarecrow wretchedness of the goods here hung out 
for sale. Who wanted to buy such things ? I wondered. One 
would have thought that the most part of the articles had passed the 
possibility of barter for money, even out of the reach of the half- 
farthings coined of late. All the street was lined with wretched 
hucksters and their merchandise of gooseberries, green apples, 
children's dirty cakes, cheap crockeries, brushes, and tinware ; 
among which objects the people were swarming about busily. 

Before the court is a wide street, where a similar market was held, 
with a vast number of donkey-carts urged hither and thither, and great 
shrieking, chattering, and bustle. It is five hundred years ago since 
a poet who accompanied Richard II. in his voyage hither spoke of 
" Watreforde on moult vilaine et orde y sont la gente." They don't 
seem to be much changed now, but remain faithful to their ancient 
habits. 

About the courthouse swarms of beggars of course were col- 
lected, varied by personages of a better sort : grey-coated farmers, 
and women with their picturesque blue cloaks, who had trudged 
in from the country probably. The court-house is as beggarly and 
ruinous as the rest of the neighbourhood ; smart-looking policemen 
kept order about it, and looked very hard at me as I ventured to 
take a sketch. 



4 6 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



The figures as I saw them 
were accurately K3 3 so dis- 
posed. The man in the dock, 
the policeman seated easily 
above him, the woman looking 
down from a gallery. The man 
was accused of stealing a sack of 
wool, and, having no counsel, 
made for himself as adroit a 
defence as any one of the coun- 
sellors (they are without robes 
or wigs here, by the way,) could 
have made for him. He had 
been seen examining a certain 
sack of wool in a coffee-shop at 
Dungarvan, and next day was 
caught sight of in Waterford 
Market, standing under an arch- 
way from the rain, with the sack 
by his side. 

"Wasn't there twenty other 
people under the arch ? " said he 
to a witness, a noble-looking beau- 
tiful girl — the girl was obliged to 
own there were. " Did you see me 
touch the wool, or stand nearer 
to it than a dozen of the dacent 
people there ? " and the girl con- 
fessed she had not. " And this it 

is, my lord," says he to the bench, " they attack me because I am poor 
and ragged, but they never think of charging the crime on a rich farmer." 

But alas for the defence ! another witness saw the prisoner with 
his legs round the sack, and being about to charge him with the theft, 
the prisoner fled into the arms of a policeman, to whom his first words 
were, " I know nothing about the sack." So, as the sack had been 
stolen, as he had been seen handling it four minutes .before it was 
stolen, and holding it for sale the day after, it was concluded that 
Patrick Malony had stolen the sack, and he was accommodated with 
eighteen months accordingly. 




THE COURT-HOUSE. 



47 



In another case we had a woman and her child on the table ; and 
others followed, in the judgment of which it was impossible not to 
admire the extreme leniency, acuteness, and sensibility of the judge 
presiding, Chief Justice Pennefather : — the man against whom all the 
Liberals in Ireland, and every one else who has read his charge too, 
must be angry, for the ferocity of his charge against a Belfast news- 
paper editor. It seems as if no parties here will be dispassionate when 
they get to a party question, and that natural kindness has no claim 
when Whig and Tory come into collision. 

The witness is here placed on a table instead of a witness-box ; 
nor was there much farther peculiarity to remark, except in the 
dirt of the court, the absence of the barristerial wig and gown, and 
the great coolness with which a fellow who seemed a sort of clerk, 
usher, and Irish interpreter to the court, recommended a prisoner, 
who was making rather a long defence, to be quiet. I asked him why 
the man might not have his say. " Sure," says he, " he's said all he 
has to say, and there's no use in any more." But there was no use in 
attempting to convince Mr. Usher that the prisoner was best judge on 
this point : in fact the poor devil shut his mouth at the admonition, 
and was found guilty with perfect justice. 




A considerable poor-house has been erected at Waterford, but 
the beggars of the place as yet prefer their liberty, and less certain 



48 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

means of gaining support. We asked one who was calling down all 
the blessings of all the saints and angels upon us, and telling a most 
piteous tale of poverty, why she did not go to the poor-house. The 
woman's look at once changed from a sentimental whine to a grin. 
" Dey owe two hundred pounds at dat house," said she, " and faith, 
an honest woman can't go dere." With which wonderful reason ought 
not the most squeamish to be content ? 



After describing, as accurately as words may, the features of a 
landscape, and stating that such a mountain was to the left, and such 
a river or town to the right, and putting down the situations and 
names of the villages, and the bearings of the roads, it has no doubt 
struck the reader of books of travels that the writer has not given 
him the slightest idea of the country, and that he would have been 
just as wise without perusing the letter-press landscape through which 
he has toiled. It will be as well then, under such circumstances, to 
spare the public any lengthened description of the road from Water- 
ford to Dungarvan; which was the road we took, followed by 
benedictions delivered gratis from the beggarhood of the former city. 
Not very far from it you see the dark plantations of the magnificent 
domain of Curraghmore, and pass through a country, blue, hilly, and 
bare, except where gentlemen's seats appear with their ornaments of 
wood. Presently, after leaving Waterford, we came to a certain town 
called Kilmacthomas, of which all the information I have to give is, 
that it is situated upon a hill and river, and that you may change 
horses there. The road was covered with carts of seaweed, which 
the people were bringing for manure from the shore some four miles 
distant ; and beyond Kilmacthomas we beheld the Cummeragh 
Mountains, " often named in maps the Nennavoulagh," either of which 
names the reader may select at pleasure. 

Thence we came to " Cushcam," at which village be it known 
that the turnpike-man kept the drag a very long time waiting. " I 
think the fellow must be writing a book," said the coachman, with a 
most severe look of drollery at a cockney tourist, who tried, under the 
circumstances, to blush, and not to laugh. I wish I could relate or 
remember half the mad jokes that flew about among the jolly Irish 
crew on the top of the coach, and which would have made a journey 
through the Desert jovial. When the 'pike-man had finished his 



TRAPPIST AND- QUAKER MONKS. 



49 



composition (that of a turnpike-ticket, which he had to fill,) we drove 
on to Dungarvan ; the two parts of which town, separated by the 
river Colligan, have been joined by a causeway three hundred yards 
along, and a bridge erected at an enormous outlay by the Duke of 
Devonshire. In former times, before his Grace spent his eighty 
thousand pounds upon the causeway, this wide estuary was called 
" Dungarvan Prospect," because the ladies of the country, walking 
over the river at low water, took off their shoes and stockings (such 
as had them), and tucking up their clothes, exhibited — what I have 
never seen, and cannot therefore be expected to describe. A large 
and handsome Catholic chapel, a square with some pretensions to 
regularity of building, a very neat and comfortable inn, and beggars 
and idlers still more numerous than at Waterford, were what we had 
leisure to remark in half-an-hour's stroll through the town. 

Near the prettily situated village of Cappoquin is the Trappist 
House of Mount Meilleraie, of which we could only see the pinnacles. 
The brethren were presented some years since with a barren mountain, 
which they have cultivated most successfully. They have among 
themselves workmen to supply all their frugal wants : ghostly tailors 
and shoemakers, spiritual gardeners and bakers, working in silence, and 
serving heaven after their way. If this reverend community, for fear 
of the opportunity of sinful talk, choose to hold their tongues, the 
next thing will be to cut them out altogether, and so render the 
danger impossible : if, being men of education and intelligence, they 
incline to turn butchers and cobblers, and smother their intellects by 
base and hard menial labour, who knows but one clay a sect may be 
more pious still, and rejecting even butchery and bakery as savouring 
too much of worldly convenience and pride, take to a wild-beast life 
at once ? Let us concede that suffering, and mental and bodily 
debasement, are the things most agreeable to heaven, and there is 
no knowing where such piety may stop. I was very glad we had not 
tune to see the grovelling place ; and as for seeing shoes made or 
fields tilled by reverend amateurs, we can find cobblers and plough- 
boys to do the work better. 

By the way, the Quakers have set up in Ireland a sort of monkery 
of their own. Not far from Carlow we met a couple of cars drawn 
by white horses, and holding white Quakers and Quakeresses, in 
white hats, clothes, shoes, with' wild maniacal-looking faces, bumping 
along the road. Let us hope that, we may soon get a community of 



50 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

Fakeers and howling Dervishes into the country. It would be a 
refreshing thing to see such ghostly men in one's travels, standing at 
the corners of roads and praising the Lord by standing on one leg, 
or cutting and hacking themselves with knives like the prophets of 
Baal. Is it not as pious for a man to deprive himself of his leg as of 
his tongue, and to disfigure his body with the gashes of a knife, as with . 
the hideous white raiment of the illuminated Quakers ? 

While these reflections were going on, the beautiful Blackwater 
river suddenly opened before us, and driving along it for three miles 
through some of the most beautiful, rich country ever seen, we came 
to Lismore. Nothing can be certainly more magnificent than this 
drive. Parks and rocks covered with the grandest foliage ; rich, 
handsome seats of gentlemen in the midst of fair lawns and beautiful 
bright plantations and shrubberies; and at the end, the graceful spire of 
Lismore church, the prettiest I have seen in, or, I think, out of Ireland. 
Nor in any country that I have visited have I seen a view more noble 
— it is too rich and peaceful to be what is called romantic, but lofty, 
large, and generous, if the term may be used ; the river and banks as 
fine as the Rhine ; the castle not as large, but as noble and picturesque 
as Warwick. As you pass the bridge, the banks stretch away on 
either side in amazing verdure, and the castle-walks remind one 
somewhat of the dear old terrace of St Germains, with its groves, 
and long grave avenues of trees. 

The salmon-fishery of the Blackwater is let, as I hear, for a 
thousand a year. In the evening, however, we saw some gentlemen 
who are likely to curtail the profits of the farmer of the fishery — a 
company of ragged boys, to wit — whose occupation, it appears, is to 
poach. These young fellows were all lolling over the bridge, as th^ 
moon rose rather mistily, and pretended to be deeply enamoured of 
the view of the river. They answered the questions of one of our 
party with the utmost innocence and openness, and one would have 
supposed the lads were so many Arcadians, but for the arrival of an 
old woman, who suddenly coming up among them pouicd out, upon 
one and all, a volley of curses, both deep and loud, saying that per- 
dition would be their portion, and calling them " shchamers " at least 
a hundred times. Much to my wonder, the young men did not reply 
to the voluble old lady for some time, who then told us the cause of 
her anger. She had a son, — " Look at him there, the villain." The 
lad was standing, looking very unhappy. " His father, that's now 



SALMON-POACHERS. 51 

dead, paid a fistful of money to bind him 'prentice at Dungarvan : but 
these shchamers followed him there ; made him break his indentures, 
and go poaching and thieving and shchaming with them." The poor 
old woman shook her hands in the air, and shouted at the top of her 
deep voice : there was something very touching in her grotesque 
sorrow ; nor did the lads make light of it at all, contenting themselves 
with a surly growl, or an oath, if directly appealed to by the poor 
creature. 

So, cursing and raging, the woman went away. The son, a lad 
of fourteen, evidently the fag of the big bullies round about him, stood 
dismally away from them, his head sunk down. I went up and asked 
him, "Was that his mother?" He said, "Yes." "Was she good 
and kind to him when he was at home ? " He said, " Oh, yes." "Why 
not come back to her?" I asked him; but he said "he couldn't." 
Whereupon I took his arm, and tried to lead him away by main 
force ; but he said, " Thank you, sir, but I can't go back," and released 
his arm. We stood on the bridge some minutes longer, looking at the 
view ; but the boy, though he kept away from his comrades, would not 
come. I wonder what they have done together, that the poor boy is 
past going home ? The place seemed to be so quiet and beautiful, and 
far away from London, that I thought crime couldn't have reached it ; 
and yet here it lurks somewhere among six boys of sixteen, each with 
a stain in his heart, and some black history to tell. The poor widow's 
yonder was the only family about which I had a chance of knowing 
anything in this remote place ; nay, in all Ireland : and God help us, 
hers was a sad lot ! — A husband gone.-dead, — an only child gone to 
ruin. It is awful to think that there are eight millions of stories to 
be told in this island. Seven million nine hundred and ninety-nine 
thousand nine hundred and ninety-eight more lives that I, and all 
brother cockneys, know nothing about. Well, please God, they are 
not all like this. 

That day, I heard another history. A little old disreputable man 
in tatters, with a huge steeple of a hat, came shambling down the 
street, one among the five hundred blackguards there. A fellow 
standing under the " Sun " portico (a sort of swaggering, chattering, 
cringeing toutcr, and master of ceremonies to the gutter,) told us some- 
thing with regard to the old disreputable man. His son had been 
hanged the day before at Clonmel, for one of the Tipperary murders. 
That blackguard in our eyes instantly looked quite different from all 



52 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

other blackguards : I saw him gesticulating at the corner of a street, 
and watched him with wonderful interest. 

The church with the handsome spire, that looks so graceful among 
the trees, is a cathedral church, and one of the neatest-kept and 
prettiest edifices I have seen in Ireland. In the old graveyard Pro- 
testants and Catholics lie together — that is, not together ; for each 
has a side of the ground where they sleep, and, so occupied, do 
not quarrel. The sun was shining down upon the brilliant grass — 
and I don't think the shadows of the Protestant graves were any 
longer or shorter than those of the Catholics ? Is it the right or 
the left side of the graveyard which is nearest heaven I wonder? 
Look, the sun shines upon both alike, " and the blue sky bends 
over all." 

Raleigh's house is approached by a grave old avenue, and well- 
kept wall, such as is rare in this country ; and the court of the castle 
within has the solid, comfortable, quiet look, equally rare. It is like 
one of our colleges at Oxford : there is a side of the quadrangle 
with pretty ivy-covered gables ; another part of the square is more 
modern ; and by the main body of the castle is a small chapel 
exceedingly picturesque. The interior is neat and in excellent order ; 
but it was unluckily done up some thirty years ago (as I imagine 
from the style), before our architects had learned Gothic, and all the 
ornamental work is consequently quite ugly and out of keeping. The 
church has probably been arranged by the same hand. In the castle 
are some plainly-furnished chambers, one or two good pictures, and 
a couple of oriel windows, the views from which up and down the 
river are exceedingly lovely. You hear praises of the Duke of 
Devonshire as a landlord wherever you go among his vast estates : 
it is a pity that, with such a noble residence as this, and with such 
a wonderful country round about it, his Grace should not inhabit 
it more. 

Of the road from Lismore to Fermoy it does not behove me to 
say much, for a pelting rain came on very soon after we quitted the 
former place, and accompanied us almost without ceasing to Fermoy. 
Here we hail a glimpse of a bridge across the Blackwater, which we 
had skirted in our journey from Lismore. Now enveloped in mist 
and cloud, now spanned by a rainbow, at another time, basking 
in sunshine, Nature attired the charming prospect for us in a score 
of different ways ; and it appeared before us like a coquettish beauty 



FERMOY TO CORK. 53 

who was trying what dress in her wardrobe might most become her. 
At Fermoy we saw a vast barrack, and an overgrown inn, where, 
however, good fare was provided ; and thence hastening came by 
Rathcormack, and Watergrass Hill, famous for the residence of 
Father Prout, whom my friend the Rev. Francis Sylvester has 
made immortal; from which descending we arrived at the beau- 
tiful wooded village of Glanmire, with its mills, and steeples, and 
streams, and neat school-houses, and pleasant country residences. 
This brings us down upon the superb stream which leads from the 
sea to Cork. 

The view for three miles on both sides is magnificently beautiful. 
Fine gardens, and parks, and villas cover the shore on each bank ; 
the river is full of brisk craft moving to the city or out to sea ; and the 
city finely ends the view, rising upon two hills on either side of the 
stream. I do not know a town to which there is an entrance more 
beautiful, commodious, and stately. 

Passing by numberless handsome lodges, and, nearer the city, 
many terraces in neat order, the road conducts us near a large tract 
of some hundred acres which have been reclaimed from the sea, 
and are destined to form a park and pleasure-ground for the citizens 
of Cork. In the river, and up to the bridge, some hundreds of ships 
were lying ; and a fleet of steamboats opposite the handsome house 
of the St. George's Steam-Packet Company. A church stands prettily 
on the hill above it, surrounded by a number of new habitations very 
neat and white. On the road is a handsome Roman Catholic chapel, 
or a chapel which will be handsome so soon as the necessary funds 
are raised to complete it. But, as at Waterford, the chapel has been 
commenced, and the money has failed, and the fine portico which is 
to decorate it one day, as yet only exists on the architect's paper. 
Saint Patrick's Bridge, over which we pass, is a pretty building ; and 
Patrick Street, the main street of the town, has an air of business and 
cheerfulness, and looks densely thronged. 

As the carriage drove up to those neat, comfortable, and extensive 
lodgings which Mrs. MacO'Boyhas to let, a magnificent mob was 
formed round the vehicle, and we had an opportunity of at once 
making acquaintance with some of the dirtiest rascally faces that all 
Ireland presents. Besides these professional rogues and beggars, who 
make a point to attend on all vehicles, everybody else seemed to stop 
too, to see that wonder, a coach and four horses. People issued from 



54 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

their shops, heads appeared at windows. I have seen the Queen 
pass in state in London, and not bring together a crowd near so great 
as that which assembled in the busiest street of the second city of the 
kingdom, just to look at a green coach and four bay-horses. Have 
they nothing else to do ? — or is it that they will do nothing but stare, 
swagger, and be idle in the streets ? 



C tf J 



CHAPTER V. 

CORK — THE AGRICULTURAL SHOW — FATHER MATHEW. 

A man has no need to be an agriculturist in order to take a warm interest 
in the success of the Irish Agricultural Society, and to see what vast good 
may result from it to the country. The National Education scheme 
— a noble and liberal one, at least as far as a stranger can see, which 
might have united the Irish people, and brought peace into this most 
distracted of all countries — failed unhappily of one of its greatest ends. 
The Protestant clergy have always treated the plan with bitter hostility : 
and I do believe, in withdrawing from it, have struck the greatest blow 
to themselves as a body, and to their own influence in the country, 
which has been dealt to them for many a year. Rich, charitable, 
pious, well-educated, to be found in every parish in Ireland, had they 
chosen to fraternise with the people and the plan, they might have 
directed the educational movement ; they might have attained the 
influence which is now given over entirely to the priest ; and when 
the present generation, educated in the national-schools, were 
grown up to manhood, they might have had an interest in almost 
every man in Ireland. Are they as pious, and more polished, and 
better educated than their neighbours the priests ? There is no 
doubt of it ; and by constant communion with the people, they would 
have gained all the benefits of the comparison, and advanced the 
interests of their religion far more than now they can hope to do. 
Look at the national-school : throughout the country it is commonly 
by the chapel side — it is a Catholic school, directed and fostered by 
the priest; and as no people are more eager for learning, more apt to 
receive it, or more grateful for kindness than the Irish, he gets all the 
gratitude of the scholars who flock to the school, and all the future 
influence over them, which naturally and justly comes to him. The 
Protestant wants to better the condition of these people : he says that 
the woes of the country are owing to its prevalent religion ; and in 



56 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

order to carry his plans of amelioration into effect, he obstinately 
refuses to hold communion with those whom he is desirous to convert 
to what he believes are sounder principles and purer doctrines. The 
clergyman will reply, that points of principle prevented him : with 
this fatal doctrinal objection, it is not, of course, the province of a 
layman to meddle ; but this is clear, that the parson might have had an 
influence over the country, and he would not ; that he might have 
rendered the Catholic population friendly to him, and he would not ; 
but, instead, has added one cause of estrangement and hostility more 
to the many which already existed against him. This is one of the 
attempts at union in Ireland, and one can't but think with the deepest 
regret and sorrow of its failure. 

Mr. O'Connell and his friends set going another scheme for 
advancing the prosperity of the country, — the notable project ot 
home manufactures, and of a coalition against foreign importation. 
This was a union certainly, but a union of a different sort to that 
noble and peaceful one which the National Education Board pro- 
posed. It was to punish England, while it pretended to secure the 
independence of Ireland, by shutting out .our manufactures from the 
Irish markets ; which were one day or other, it was presumed, to be 
filled by native produce. Large bodies of tradesmen and private 
persons in Dublin and other towns in Ireland associated together, 
vowing to purchase no articles of ordinary consumption or usage but 
what were manufactured in the country. This bigoted, old-world 
scheme of restriction — not much more liberal than Swing's crusade 
against the threshing-machines, or the coalitions in England against 
machinery — failed, as it deserved to do. For the benefit of a few 
tradesmen, who might find their account in selling at dear rates their 
clumsy and imperfect manufactures, it was found impossible to tax a 
people that are already poor enough ; nor did the party take into 
account the cleverness of the merchants across sea, who were by no 
means disposed to let go their Irish customers. The famous Irish 
frieze uniform which was to distinguish these patriots, and which 
Mr. O'Connell lauded so loudly and so simply, came over made at 
half-price from Leeds and Glasgow, and was retailed as real Irish by 
many worthies who had been first to join the union. You may still 
see shops here and there with their pompous announcement of " Irish 
Manufactures ; n but the scheme is long gone to ruin : it could not stand 
against the vast force of English and Scotch capital and machinery, 



THE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 57 

any more than the Ulster spinning-wheel against the huge factories 
and steam-engines which one may see about Belfast. 

The scheme of the Agricultural Society is a much more feasible 
one ; and if, please God, it can be carried out, likely to give not only 
prosperity to the country, but union likewise in a great degree. As 
yet Protestants and Catholics concerned in it have worked well 
together ; and it is a blessing to see them meet upon any ground 
without heartburning and quarrelling. Last year, Mr. Purcell, who 
is well known in Ireland as the principal mail-coach contractor for the 
country, — who himself employs more workmen in Dublin than perhaps 
any other person there, and has also more land under cultivation than 
most of the great landed proprietors in the country, — wrote a letter to 
the newspapers, giving his notions of the fallacy of the exclusive- 
dealing system, and pointing out at the same time how he considered 
the country might be benefited — by agricultural improvement, namely. 
He spoke of the neglected state of the country, and its amazing 
natural fertility ; and, for the benefit of all, called upon the landlords 
and landholders to use their interest and develop its vast agricultural 
resources. Manufactures are at best but of slow growth, and demand 
not only time, but capital ; meanwhile, until the habits of the people 
should grow to be such as to render manufactures feasible, there was 
a great neglected treasure, lying under their feet, which might be the 
source of prosperity to all. He pointed out the superior methods of 
husbandry employed in Scotland and England, and the great results 
obtained upon soils naturally much poorer; and, taking the Highland 
Society for an example, the establishment of which had done so much 
for the prosperity of Scotland, he proposed the formation in Ireland 
of a similar association. 

The letter made an extraordinary sensation throughout the country. 
Noblemen and gentry of all sides took it up ; and numbers of these 
wrote to Mr. Purcell, and gave him their cordial adhesion to the 
plan. A meeting was held, and the Society formed : subscriptions 
were set on foot, headed by the Lord Lieutenant (Fortescue) and the 
Duke of Leinster, each with a donation of 200/. ; and the trustees had 
soon 5,000/. at their disposal : with, besides, an annual revenue of 
1,000/. The subscribed capital is funded; and political subjects strictly 
excluded. The Society has a show yearly in one of the principal 
towns of Ireland : it corresponds with the various local agricultural 
associations throughout the country; encourages the formation of new 



5 8 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

ones ; and distributes prizes and rewards. It has further in contem- 
plation, to establish a large Agricultural school for farmers' sons ; and 
has formed in Dublin an Agricultural Bazaar and Museum. 



It was the first meeting of the Society which we were come to see 
at Cork. Will it be able to carry its excellent intentions into effect ? 
Will the present enthusiasm of its founders and members continue ? 
Will one political party or another get the upper hand in it ? One 
can't help thinking of these points with some anxiety — of the latter 
especially : as yet, happily, the clergy of either side have kept aloof, 
and the union seems pretty cordial and sincere. 

There are in Cork, as no doubt in every town of Ireland suffi- 
ciently considerable to support a plurality of hotels, some especially 
devoted to the Conservative and Liberal parties. Two dinners were 
to be given apropos of the Agricultural meeting; and in order to 
conciliate all parties, it was determined that the Tory landlord should 
find the cheap ten-shilling dinner for one thousand, the Whig land- 
lord the genteel guinea dinner for a few select hundreds. 

I wish Mr. Cuff, of the " Freemasons' Tavern," could have been 
at Cork to take a lesson from the latter gentleman : for he would 
have seen that there are means of having not merely enough to eat, 
but enough of the very best, for the sum of a guinea ; that persons 
can have not only wine, but good wine, and if inclined (as some 
topers are on great occasions) to pass to another bottle, — a second, 
a third, or a fifteenth bottle, for what I know is very much at their 
service. It was a fine sight to see Mr. Mac Dowall presiding over an 
ice-well and extracting the bottles of champagne. With what calm- 
ness he did it ! How the corks popped, and the liquor fizzed, and the 
agriculturalists drank the bumpers off ! And how good the wine was 
too — the greatest merit of all! Mr. Mac Dowall did credit to his 
liberal politics by his liberal dinner. 

" Sir," says a waiter whom I asked for currant-jelly for the haunch 
— (there were a dozen such smoking on various parts of the table — 
think of that, Mr. Cuff!) — "Sir," says the waiter, "there's no' jelly, 
but I've brought you some very fine lobster-sauce" I think this was 
the most remarkable speech of the evening ; not excepting that of my 
Lord Bernard, who, to three hundred gentlemen more or less con- 



THE RIVAL DINNERS. 59 

nected with farming, had actually the audacity to quote the words of 
the great agricultural poet of Rome — 

" fortunatos nimium sua si," &>c. 

How long are our statesmen in England to continue to back 
their opinions by the Latin grammar ? Are the Irish agriculturalists 
so very happy, if they did but know it — at least those out of doors ? 
Well, those within were jolly enough. Champagne and claret, turbot 
and haunch, are gifts of the jwtissima tellus, with which few husband- 
men will be disposed to quarrel : — no more let us quarrel either with 
eloquence after dinner. 

If the Liberal landlord had shown his principles in his dinner, 
the Conservative certainly showed his ; by conserving as much profit 
as possible for himself. We sat down one thousand to some two 
hundred and fifty cold joints of meat. Every man was treated with a 
pint of wine, and very bad too, so that there was the less cause to 
grumble because more was not served. Those agriculturalists who 
had a mind to drink whisky-and-water had to pay extra for their 
punch. Nay, after shouting in vain for half-an-hour to a waiter for 
some cold water, the unhappy writer could only get it by promising a 
shilling. The sum was paid on delivery of the article ; but as every- 
body round was thirsty too, I got but a glassful from the decanter, 
which only served to make me long for more. The waiter (the 
rascal !) promised more, but never came near us afterwards : he had 
got his shilling, and so he left us in a hot room, surrounded by a 
thousand hot fellow-creatures, one of them making a dry speech. The 
agriculturalists were not on this occasion nimium fortunati. 

To have heard a nobleman, however, who discoursed to the meet- 
ing, you would have fancied that we were the luckiest mortals under the 
broiling July sun. He said he could conceive nothing more delight- 
ful than to see, " on proper occasions," — (mind, on proper occasions !) 
— "the landlord mixing with his tenantry; and to look around him 
at a scene like this, and see the condescension with which the gentry 
mingled with the farmers ! " Prodigious condescension truly ! This 
neat speech seemed to me an oratoric slap on the face to about nine 
hundred and seventy persons present ; and being one of the latter, I 
began to hiss by way of acknowledgment of the compliment, and 
hoped that a strong party would have destroyed the harmony of the 
evening, and done likewise. But not one hereditary bondsman 



60 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

would join in the compliment — and they were quite right too. The 
old lord who talked about condescension is one of the greatest and 
kindest landlords in Ireland. If he thinks he condescends by doing 
his duty and mixing with men as good as himself, the fault lies with 
the latter. Why are they so ready to go down on their knees to my 
lord ? A man can't help " condescending " to another who will persist 
in kissing his shoestrings. They respect rank in England — the people 
seem almost to adore it here. 

As an instance of the intense veneration for lords which distin- 
guishes this county of Cork, I may mention what occurred afterwards. 
The members of the Cork Society gave a dinner to their guests of the 
Irish Agricultural Association. The founder of the latter, as Lord 
Downshire stated, was Mr. Purcell : and as it was agreed on all 
hands that the Society so founded was likely to prove of the greatest 
benefit to the country, one might have supposed that any compliment 
paid to it might have been paid to it through its founder. Not 
so. The Society asked the lords to dine, and Mr. Purcell to meet 
the lords. 

After the grand dinner came a grand ball, which was indeed one 
of the gayest and prettiest sights ever seen ; nor was it the less 
agreeable, because the ladies of the city mixed with the ladies from 
the country, and vied with them in grace and beauty. The charming 
gaiety and frankness of the Irish ladies have been noted and admired 
by every foreigner who has had the good fortune to mingle in their 
society ; and I hope it is not detracting from the merit of the upper 
classes to say that the lower are not a whit less pleasing. I never 
saw in any country such a general grace of manner and ladyhood. In 
the midst of their gaiety, too, it must be remembered that they are 
the chastest of women, and that no country in Europe can^boast of 
such a general purity. 

In regard of the Munster ladies, I had the pleasure to be present 
at two or three evening-parties at Cork, and must say that they seem 
to excel the English ladies not only in wit and vivacity, but in the 
still more important article of the toilette. They are as well dressed 
as Frenchwomen, and incomparably handsomer ; and if ever this 
book reaches a thirtieth edition, and I can find out better words to 
express admiration, they shall be inserted here. Among the ladies' 
accomplishments, I may mention that I have heard in two or three 
private families such fine music as is rarely to be met with out of a 



FATHER MA THE W. 61 

capital. In one house we had a supper and songs afterwards, in the 
old honest fashion. Time was in Ireland when the custom was a 
common one ; but the world grows languid as it grows genteel ; and 
I fancy it requires more than ordinary spirit and courage now for a 
good old gentleman, at the head of his kind family table, to strike up 
a good old family song. 

The delightful old gentleman who sung the song here mentioned 
could not help talking of the Temperance movement with a sort of 
regret, and said that all the fun had gone out of Ireland since Father 
Mathew banished the whisky from it. Indeed, any stranger going 
amongst the people can perceive that they are now anything but gay. 
I have seen a great number of crowds and meetings of people in all 
parts of Ireland, and found them all gloomy. There is nothing like 
the merry-making one reads of in the Irish novels. Lever and 
Maxwell must be taken as chroniclers of the old times — the pleasant 
but wrong old times — for which one can't help having an antiquarian 
fondness. 

On the day we arrived at Cork, and as the passengers descended 
from " the drag," a stout, handsome, honest-looking man, of some 
two-and-forty years, was passing by, and received a number of bows 
from the crowd around. It was 

with whose face a thousand little print-shop windows had already 
rendered me familiar. He shook hands with the master of the 
carriage very cordially, and just as cordially with the master's coach- 
man, a disciple of temperance, as at least half Ireland is at present. 
The day after the famous dinner at Mac Dowall's, some of us came 
down rather late, perhaps in consequence of the events of the night 
before — (I think it was Lord Bernard's quotation from Virgil, or 
else the absence of the currant-jelly for the venison, that occasioned 
a slight headache among some of us, and an extreme longing for 
soda-water,) — and there was the Apostle of Temperance seated at the 
table drinking tea. Some of us felt a little ashamed of ourselves, 
and did not like to ask somehow for the soda-water in such an awful 
presence as that. Besides, it would have been a confession to a 
Catholic priest, and, as a Protestant, I am above it. 

The world likes to know how a great man appears even to a 



62 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

valet-de-chambre, and I suppose it is one's vanity that is flattered in 
such rare company to find the great man quite as unassuming as the 
very smallest personage present ; and so like to other mortals, that 
we would not know him to be a great man at all, did we not know 
his name, and what he had done. There is nothing remarkable in 
Mr. Mathew's manner, except that it is exceedingly simple, hearty, and 
manly, and that he does not wear the downcast, demure look which, 
I know not why, certainly characterizes the chief part of the gentle- 
men of his profession. Whence comes that general scowl which 
darkens the faces of the Irish priesthood ? I have met a score of 
these reverend gentlemen in the country, and not one of them seemed 
to look or speak frankly, except Mr. Mathew, and a couple more. 
He is almost the only man, too, that I have met in Ireland, who, in 
speaking of public matters, did not talk as a partisan. With the 
state of the country, of landlord, tenant, and peasantry, he seemed 
to be most curiously and intimately acquainted ; speaking of their 
wants, differences, and the means of bettering them, with the minutest 
practical knowledge. And it was impossible in hearing him to know, 
but from previous acquaintance with his character, whether he was 
Whig or Tory, Catholic or Protestant. Why does not Government 
make a Privy Councillor of him ? — that is, if he would honour the 
Right. Honourable body by taking a seat amongst them. His know- 
ledge of the people is prodigious, and their confidence in him as 
great ; and what a touching attachment that is which these poor 
fellows show to any one who has their cause at heart — even to any 
one who says he has ! 

Avoiding all political questions, no man seems more eager than 
he for the practical improvement of this country. Leases and rents, 
farming improvements, reading-societies, music-societies — he was full 
of these, and of his schemes of temperance above all. He never 
misses a chance of making a convert, and has his hand ready and a 
pledge in his pocket for sick or poor. One of his disciples in a iivery- 
coat came into the room with a tray — Mr. Mathew recognized him, 
and shook him by the hand directly ; so he did with the strangers 
who were presented to him ; and not with a courtly popularity-hunting 
air, but, as it seemed, from sheer hearty kindness, and a desire to do 
every one good. 

When breakfast was done — (he took but one cup of tea, and says 
that, from having been a great consumer of tea and refreshing liquids 



FATHER MATHEWS CEMETERY. 63 

before, a small cup of tea, and one glass of water at dinner, now serve 
him for his day's beverage) — he took the ladies of our party to see his 
burying-ground — a new and handsome cemetery, lying a little way 
out of the town, and where, thank God ! Protestants and Catholics 
may lie together, without clergymen quarrelling over their coffins. 

It is a handsome piece of ground, and was formerly a botanic 
garden ; but the funds failed for that undertaking, as they have for a 
thousand other public enterprises in this poor disunited country ; and 
so it has been converted into a hortus siccus for us mortals. There is 
already a pretty large collection. In the midst is a place for Mathew 
himself — honour to him living or dead ! Meanwhile, numerous 
stately monuments have been built, flowers planted here and there 
over dear remains, and the garden in which they lie is rich, green, and 
beautiful. Here is a fine statue, by Hogan, of a weeping genius that 
broods over the tomb of an honest merchant and clothier of the city. 
He took a liking to the artist, his fellow-townsman, and ordered his 
own monument, and had the gratification to see it arrive from Rome 
a few weeks before his death. A prettier thing even than the statue 
is the tomb of a little boy, which has been shut in by a large and 
curious grille of iron-work. The father worked it, a blacksmith, whose 
darling the child was, and he spent three years in hammering out this 
mausoleum. It is the beautiful story of the pot of ointment told 
again at the poor blacksmith's anvil ; and who can but like him for 
placing this fine gilded cage over the body of his poor little one ? 
Presently you come to a Frenchwoman's tomb, with a French epitaph 
by a French husband, and a pot of artificial flowers in a niche — a 
wig, and a pot of rouge, as it w£re, just to make the dead look 
passably well. It is his manner of showing his sympathy for an im- 
mortal soul that has passed away. The poor may be buried here for 
nothing ; and here, too, once more thank God ! each may rest 
without priests or parsons scowling hell-fire at his neighbour uncon- 
scious under the grass. 



64 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER VI. 

CORK THE URSULINE CONVENT. 

There is a large Ursuline convent at Blackrock, near Cork, and a 
lady who had been educated there was kind enough to invite me to 
join a party to visit the place. Was not this a great privilege for a 
heretic ? I have peeped into convent chapels abroad, and occasion- 
ally caught glimpses of a white veil or black gown ; but to see the 
pious ladies in their own retreat was quite a novelty — much more 
exciting than the exhibition of Long Horns and Short Horns by 
which we had to pass on our road to Blackrock. 

The three miles' ride is very pretty. As far as nature goes, she 
has done her best for the neighbourhood ; and the noble hills on the 
opposite coast of the river, studded with innumerable pretty villas 
and garnished with fine trees and meadows, the river itself dark blue 
under a brilliant cloudless heaven, and lively with its multiplicity of 
gay craft, accompany the traveller along the road ; except here and 
there where the view is shut out by fine avenues of trees, a beggarly 
row of cottages, or a villa wall. Rows of dirty cabins, and smart 
bankers' country-houses, meet one at every turn; nor do the latter want 
for fine names, you may be sure. The Irish grandiloquence displays 
itself finely in the invention of such ; and, to the great inconvenience, 
I should think, of the postman, the names of the houses appear to 
change with the tenants : for I saw many old houses with new pla- 
cards in front, setting forth the last title of the house. 

I had the box of the carriage (a smart vehicle that would have 
done credit to the ring), and found the gentleman by my side very 
communicative. He named the owners of the pretty mansions and 
lawns visible on the other side of the river : they appear almost all to 
be merchants, who have made their fortunes in the city. In the like 
manner, though the air of the town is extremely fresh and pure to a 
pair of London lungs, the Cork shopkeeper is not satisfied with it, but 
contrives for himself a place (with an euphonious name, no doubt) in 
the suburbs of the city. These stretch to a great extent along the 
beautiful, liberal-looking banks of the stream. 



A TEMPERANCE MAN. 65 

I asked the man about the Temperance, and whether he was a 
temperance man ? He replied by pulling a medal out of his waist- 
coat pocket, saying that he always carried it about with him for fear 
of temptation. He said that he took the pledge two years ago, 
before which time, as he confessed, he had been a sad sinner in the 
way of drink. " I used to take," said he, " from eighteen to twenty 
glasses of whisky a day ; I was always at the drink ; I'd be often up 
all night at the public : I was turned away by my present master on 
account of it ; "—and all of a sudden he resolved to break it off. I 
asked him whether he had not at first experienced ill-health from the 
suddenness of the change in his habits ; but he said — and let all 
persons meditating a conversion from liquor remember the fact — that 
the abstinence never affected him in the least, but that he went on 
growing better and better in health every day, stronger and more able 
of mind and body. 

The man was a Catholic, and in speaking of the numerous places 
of worship along the road as we passed, I'm sorry to confess, dealt 
some rude cuts with his whip regarding the Protestants. Coachman 
as he was, the fellow's remarks seemed to be correct : for it appears 
that the religious world of Cork is of so excessively enlightened 
a kind, that one church will not content one pious person ; but 
that, on the contrary, they will be at Church of a morning, at 
Independent church of an afternoon, at a Darbyite congregation of 
an evening, and so on, gathering excitement or information from all 
sources which they could come at. Is not this the case ? are not 
some of the ultra-serious as eager after a new preacher, as the ultra- 
worldly for a new dancer ? don't they talk and gossip about him as 
much ? Though theology from the coach-box is rather questionable, 
(after all, the man was just as much authorised to propound his 
notions as many a fellow from an amateur pulpit,) yet he certainly had 
the right here as far as his charge against certain Protestants went. 

The reasoning from it was quite obvious, and I'm sure was in the 
man's mind, though he did not utter it, as we drove by this time into 
the convent gate. " Here," says coachman, " is our church. / don't 
drive my master and mistress from church to chapel, from chapel to 
conventicle, hunting after new preachers every Sabbath. I bring 
them every Sunday and set them down at the same place, where 
they know that everything they hear must be right. Their fathers 
have done the same thing before them ; and the young ladies and 



66 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

gentlemen will come here too ; and all the new-fangled doctors and 
teachers may go roaring through the land, and still here we come 
regularly, not caring a whit for the vagaries of others, knowing that 
we ourselves are in the real old right original way." 

I am sure this is what the fellow meant by his sneer at the Pro- 
testants, and their gadding from one doctrine to another ; but there 
was no call and no time to have a battle with him, as by this time 
we had entered a large lawn covered with haycocks, and prettily, as 
I think, ornamented with a border of blossoming potatoes, and drove 
up to the front door of the convent. It is a huge old square house, 
with many windows, having probably been some flaunting squire's 
residence ; but the nuns have taken off somewhat from its rakish 
look, by flinging out a couple of wings with chapels, or buildings like 
chapels, at either end. 

A large, lofty, clean, trim hall was open to a flight of steps, and 
we found a young lady in the hall, playing, instead of a pious sonata 
— which I vainly thought was the practice in such godly seminaries 
of learning — that abominable rattling piece of music called la 
Violette, which it has been my lot to hear executed by other young 
ladies ; and which (with its like) has always appeared to me to be 
constructed upon this simple fashion — to take a tune, and then, as 
it were, to fling it down and upstairs. As soon as the young lady 
playing "the Violet" saw us, she quitted the hall and retired to an 
inner apartment, where she resumed that delectable piece at her 
leisure. Indeed there were pianos all over the educational part of 
the house. 

We were shown into a gay parlour (where hangs a pretty drawing 
representing the melancholy old convent which the Sisters previously 
inhabited in Cork), and presently Sister No. Two-Eight made her 
appearance — a pretty and graceful lady, attired as on the next page. 

" 'Tis the prettiest nun of the whole house," whispered the lady 
who had been educated at the convent ; and I must own that slim, 
gentle, and pretty as this young lady was, and calculated with her 
kind smiling face and little figure to frighten no one in the world, 
a great six-foot Protestant could not help looking at her with a little 
tremble. I had never been in a nun's company before ; I'm afraid 
of such — I don't care to own — in their black mysterious robes and 
awful veils. As priests in gorgeous vestments, and little rosy incense- 
boys in red, bob their heads and knees up and down before altars, 



A NUN 



67 



or clatter silver pots full of smoking odours, I feel I don't know 
what sort of thrill and secret creeping terror. Here I was, in a 
room with a real live nun, pretty and pale — I wonder has she any 




of her sisterhood immured in oubliettes down below ; is her poor little 
weak, delicate body scarred all over with scourgings, iron-collars, 
hair-shirts? What has she had for dinner to-day? — as we passed 
the refectory there was a faint sort of vapid nun-like vegetable smell, 
speaking of fasts and wooden platters ; and I could picture to 
myself silent sisters eating their meal — a grim old yellow one in the 
reading-desk, croaking out an extract from a sermon for their edifi- 
cation. 

But is it policy, or hypocrisy, or reality? These nuns affect 
extreme happiness and content with their condition : a smiling 
beatitude, which they insist belongs peculiarly to them, and about 
which the only doubtful point is the manner in which it . produced 
before strangers. Young ladies educated in convents have often 
mentioned this fact — how the nuns persist in declaring and proving to 
them their own extreme enjoyment of life. 

Were all the smiles of that kind-looking Sister Two-Eight perfectly 
sincere ? Whenever she spoke her face was lighted up with one. 
She seemed perfectly radiant with happiness, tripping lightly before 
us, and distributing kind compliments to each, which made me in a 



68 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

very few minutes forget the introductory fright which her poor little 
presence had occasioned. 

She took us through the hall (where was the vegetable savour 
before mentioned), and showed us the contrivance by which the name 
of Two-Eight was ascertained. Each nun has a number, or a com- 
bination of numbers, prefixed to her name ; and a bell is pulled a 
corresponding number of times, by which each sister knows when she is 
wanted. Poor souls ! are they always on the look-out for that bell, that 
the ringing of it should be supposed infallibly to awaken their attention? 

From the hall the sister conducted us through ranges of apart- 
ments, and I had almost said avenues of pianofortes, whence here and 
there a startled pensioner would rise, hinnuleo similis, at our approach, 
seeking a pavidam matrem in the person of a demure old stout mother 
hard by. We were taken through a hall decorated with a series of 
pictures of Pope Pius VI., — wonderful adventures, truly, in the life of 
the gentle old man. In one you see him gracefully receiving a Prince 
and Princess of Russia (tremendous incident !). The Prince has a 
pigtail, the Princess powder and a train, the Pope a — but never mind, 
we shall never get through the house at this rate. 

Passing through Pope Pius's gallery, we came into a long, clean, 
lofty passage, with many little doors on each side ; and here I confess 
my heart began to thump again. These w r ere the doors of the cells 
of the Sisters. Bon Dieu ! and is it possible that I shall see a nun's 
cell ? Do I not recollect the nun's cell in " The Monk," or in " The 
Romance of the Forest?" or, if not there, at any rate, in a thousand 
noble romances, read in early days of half-holiday perhaps — romances 
at twopence a volume. 

Come in, in the name of the saints ! Here is the cell. I took 
off my hat and examined the little room with much curious wonder 
and reverence. There was an iron bed, with comfortable curtains of 
green serge. There was a little clothes-chest of yellow wood, neatly 
cleaned, and a wooden chair beside it, and a desk on the chest, and 
about six pictures on the wall — little religious pictures : a saint with 
gilt paper round him ; the Virgin showing on her breast a bleeding 
heart, with a sword run through it; and other sad little subjects, 
calculated to make the inmate of the cell think of the sufferings of 
the saints and martyrs of the Church. Then there was a little crucifix, 
and a wax-candle on the ledge ; and here was the place where the 
poor black-veiled things were to pass their lives for ever ! 



THE URSULINE CONVENT. 69 

After having seen a couple of these little cells, we left the corridors 
in which they were, and were conducted, with a sort of pride on the 
nun's part, I thought, into the grand room of the convent — a parlour 
with pictures of saints, and a gay paper, and a series of small fineries, 
such only as women very idle know how to make. There were some 
portraits in the room, one an atrocious daub of an ugly old woman, 
surrounded by children still more hideous. Somebody had told the 
poor nun that this was a fine thing, and she believed it — heaven 
bless her ! — quite implicitly : nor is the picture of the ugly old Canadian 
woman the first reputation that has been made this way. 

Then from the fine parlour we went to the museum. I don't 
know how we should be curious of such trifles ; but the chronicling of 
small-beer is the main business of life — people only differing, as Tom 
Moore wisely says in one of his best poems, about their own peculiar 
tap. The poor nun's little collection of gimcracks was displayed in 
great state : there were spars in one drawer ; and, I think, a Chinese 
shoe and some Indian wares in another ; and some medals of the 
Popes, and a couple of score of coins ; and a clean glass case, full of 
antique works of French theology of the distant period of Louis XV., 
to judge by the bindings — and this formed the main part of the 
museum. " The chief objects were gathered together by a single 
nun," said the sister with a look of wonder, as she went prattling 
on, and leading us hither and thither, like a child showing her toys. 

What strange mixture of pity and pleasure is it which comes over 
you sometimes when a child takes you by the hand, and leads you 
up solemnly to some little treasure of its own — a feather or a string 
of glass beads ? I declare I have often looked at such with more 
delight than at diamonds; and felt the same sort of soft wonder 
examining the nun's little treasure-chamber. There was something 
touching, in the very poverty of it : — had it been finer, it would not 
have been half so good. 

And now we had seen all the wonders of the house but the 
chapel, and thither we were conducted ; all the ladies of our party 
kneeling down as they entered the building, and saying a short 
prayer. 

This, as I am on sentimental confessions, I must Own affected me 
too. It was a very pretty and tender sight. I should have liked to 
kneel down too, but was ashamed ; our northern usages not encouraging 
— among men at least — that sort of abandonment of dignity. Do 



yo THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

any of us dare to sing psalms at church ? and don't we look with 
rather a sneer at a man who does ? 

The chapel had nothing remarkable in it except a very good 
organ, as I was told ; for we were allowed only to see the exterior of 
that instrument, our pious guide with much pleasure removing an oil- 
cloth which covered the mahogany. At one side of the altar is a long 
high grille, through which you see a hall, where the nuns have their 
stalls, and sit in chapel time ; and beyond this hall is another small 
chapel, with a couple' of altars, and one beautiful print in one of 
them — a German Holy Family — a prim, mystical, tender piece, just 
befitting the place. 

In the grille is a little wicket and a ledge before it. It is to this 
wicket that women are brought to kneel ; and a bishop is in the 
chapel on the other side, and takes their hands in his, and receives 
their vows. I had never seen the like before, and own that I felt a 
sort of shudder at looking at the place. There rest the girl's knees 
as she offers herself up, and forswears the sacred affections which 
God gave her ; there she kneels and denies for ever the beautiful 
duties of her being : — no tender maternal yearnings, no gentle attach- 
ments are to be had for her or from her, — there she kneels and 
commits suicide upon her heart. O honest Martin Luther ! thank 
God, you came to pull that infernal, wicked, unnatural altar down — 
that cursed Paganism ! Let people, solitary, worn-out by sorrow or 
oppressed with extreme remorse, retire to such places ; fly and beat 
your breasts in caverns and wildernesses, O women, if you will, but 
be Magdalens first. It is shameful that any young girl, with any 
vocation however seemingly strong, should be allowed to bury herself 
in this small tomb of a few acres. Look at yonder nun, — pretty, 
smiling, graceful, and young, — what has God's world done to her, 
that she should run from it, or she done to the world, that she should 
avoid it ? What call has she to give up all her duties and affections ? 
and would she not be best serving God with a husband at her side, 
and a child on her knee ? 

The sights in the house having been seen, the nun led us through 
tfte grounds and gardens. There was the hay in front, a fine yellow 
corn-field at the back of the house, and a large melancholy-looking 
kitchen-garden ; in all of which places the nuns, for certain hours in 
the day, are allowed to take recreation. " The nuns here are allowed 
to amuse themselves more than ours at New Hall," said a little girl 



THE CONVENT BURIAL-GROUND. 71 

who is educated at that English convent : " do you know that here 
the nuns may make hay ? " What a privilege is this ! We saw none 
of the black sisterhood availing themselves of it, however : the hay 
was neatly piled into cocks and ready for housing ; so the poor souls 
must wait until next year before they can enjoy this blessed sport 
once more. 

Turning into a narrow gate with the nun at our head, we found 
ourselves in a little green, quiet inclosure — it was the burial-ground 
of the convent. The poor things know the places where they are to 
lie : she who was with us talked smilingly of being stretched there 
one day, and pointed out the resting-place of a favourite old sister 
who had died three months back, and been buried in the very midst 
of the little ground. And here they come to live and die. The 
gates are open, but they never go out. All their world lies in a dozen 
acres of ground ; and they sacrifice their lives in early youth, many of 
them passing from the grave upstairs in the house to the one scarcely 
narrower in the churchyard here ; and are seemingly not unhappy. 

I came out of the place quite sick ; and looking before me, — 
there, thank God ! was the blue spire of Monkstown church soaring 
up into the free sky — a river in front rolling away to the sea — liberty, 
sunshine, all sorts of glad life and motion round about : and I 
couldn't but thank heaven for it, and the Being whose service is free- 
dom, and who has given us affections that we may use them — not 
smother and kill them ; and a noble world to live in, that we may 
admire it and Him who made it — not shrink from it, as though we 
dared not live there, but must turn our backs upon it and its bountiful 
Provider. 

And in conclusion, if that most cold-blooded and. precise of all 
personages, the respectable and respected English reader, may feel 
disposed to sneer at the above sentimental homily, or to fancy that it 
has been written for effect — let him go and see a convent for himself. 
I declare I think for my part that we have as much right to permit 
Sutteeism in India as to allow women in the United Kingdom to 
take these wicked vows, or Catholic bishops to receive them ; and 
that Government has as good a right to interpose in such cases, as the 
police have to prevent a man from hanging himself, or the doctor to 
refuse a glass of prussic-acid to any one who may have a wish to go 
out of the world. -^ 



72 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CORK. 

Amidst the bustle and gaieties of the Agricultural meeting, the 
working-day aspect of the city was not to be judged of: but I passed 
a fortnight in the place afterwards, during which time it settled down 
to its calm and usual condition. The flashy French and plated goods' 
shops, which made a show for the occasion of the meeting, dis- 
appeared ; you were no longer crowded and jostled by smart male 
and female dandies in walking down Patrick Street or the Mall ; the 
poor little theatre had scarcely a soul on its bare benches : I went 
once, but the dreadful brass-band of a dragoon regiment blew me out 
of doors. This music could be heard much more pleasantly at some 
distance off in the street. 

One sees in this country many a grand and tall iron gate leading 
into a very shabby field covered with thistles ; and the simile to the 
gate will in some degree apply to this famous city of Cork, — which is 
certainly not a city of palaces, but of which the outlets are magnificent. 
That towards Killarney leads by the Lee, the old Avenue of Mardyke, 
and the rich green pastures stretching down to the river ; and as you 
pass by the portico of the county gaol, as fine and as glancing as a 
palace, you see the wooded heights on the other side of the fair 
stream, crowded with a thousand pretty villas and terraces, presenting 
every image of comfort and prosperity. The entrance from Cove has 
been mentioned before ; nor is it easy to find anywhere a nobler, 
grander, and more cheerful scene. 

Along the quays up to Saint Patrick's Bridge there is a certain 
bustle. Some forty ships may be lying at anchor along the walls of 
the quay, and its pavements are covered with goods of various 
merchandise : here a cargo of hides ; yonder a company of soldiers, 
their kits, and their Dollies, who are taking leave of the red-coats at 
the steamer's side. Then you shall see a fine, squeaking, shrieking 
drove of pigs embarking by the same conveyance, and insinuated 
into the steamer by all sorts of coaxing, threatening, and wheedling. 
Seamen are singing and yeehoing on board } grimy colliers smoking 



POVERTY IN CORK. 73 

at the liquor-shops along the quay ; and as for the bridge — there is a 
crowd of idlers on that, you may be sure, sprawling over the balus- 
trade for ever and ever, with long ragged coats, steeple-hats, and 
stumpy doodeens. 

Then along the Coal Quay you may see a clump of jingle-drivers, 
who have all a word for your honour ; and in Patrick Street, at three 
o'clock, when " The Rakes of Mallow " gets under weigh (a cracked 
old coach with the paint rubbed off, some smart horses, and an 
exceedingly dingy harness) — at three o'clock, you will be sure to 
see at least forty persons waiting to witness the departure of the 
said coach : so that the neighbourhood of the inn has an air of 
some bustle. 

At the other extremity of the town, if it be assize time, you will 
see some five hundred persons squatting by the court-house, or 
buzzing and talking within. The rest of the respectable quarter of 
the city is pretty free from anything like bustle : there is no more 
life in Patrick Street than in Russell Square of a sunshiny day; 
and as for the Mall, it is as lonely as the chief street of a German 
Residenz. 

I have mentioned the respectable quarter of the city — for there 
are quarters in it swarming with life, but of such a frightful kind as no 
pen need care to describe : alleys where the odours and rags and 
darkness are so hideous, that one runs frightened away from them. 
In some of them, they say, not the policeman, only the priest, can 
penetrate. I asked a Roman Catholic clergyman of the city to take 
me into some of these haunts, but he refused very justly ; and indeed 
a man may be quite satisfied with what he can see in the mere out- 
skirts of the districts, without caring to penetrate further. Not far 
from the quays is an open space where the poor hold a market or 
bazaar. Here is liveliness and business enough : ragged women 
chattering and crying their beggarly wares ; ragged boys gloating 
over dirty apple- and pie-stalls ; fish frying, and raw and stinking ; 
clothes-booths, where you might buy a wardrobe for scarecrows ; old 
nails, hoops, bottles, and marine-wares ; old battered furniture, that 
has been sold against starvation. In the streets round about this 
place, on a sunshiny day, all the black gaping windows and mouldy 
steps are covered with squatting lazy figures — women, with bare 
breasts, nursing babies, and leering a joke as you pass by — ragged 
children paddling everywhere. It is but two minutes' walk out of 



74 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

Patrick Street, where you come upon a fine flashy shop of plated- 
goods, or a grand French emporium of dolls, walking-sticks, carpet- 
bags, and perfumery. The markets hard by have a rough, old- 
fashioned, cheerful look ; it's a comfort after the misery to hear a red 
butcher's wife crying after you to buy an honest piece of meat. 

The poor-house, newly established, cannot hold a fifth part of the 
poverty of this great town : the richer inhabitants are untiring in 
their charities, and the Catholic clergyman before mentioned took 
me to see a delivery of rice, at which he presides every day until the 
potatoes shall come in. This market, over which he presides so 
kindly, is held in an old bankrupt warehouse, and the rice is sold 
considerably under the prime cost to hundreds of struggling applicants 
who come when lucky enough to have wherewithal to pay. 

That the city contains much wealth is evidenced by the number 
of handsome villas round about it, where the rich merchants dwell ; 
but the warehouses of the wealthy provision-merchants make no show 
to the stranger walking the streets ; and of the retail-shops, if some 
are spacious and handsome, most look as if too big for the business 
carried on within. The want of ready-money was quite curious. In 
three of the principal shops I purchased articles, and tendered a 
pound in exchange — not one of them had silver enough ; and as for 
a five-pound note, which I presented at one of the topping book- 
seller's, his boy went round to various places in vain, and finally set 
forth to the Bank, where change was got. In another small shop I 
offered half-a-crown to pay for a sixpenny article — it was all the same. 
"Tim," says the good woman, "run out in a hurry and fetch the 
gentleman change." Two of the shopmen, seeing an Englishman, 
were very particular to tell me in what years they themselves had 
been in London. It seemed a merit in these gentlemen's eyes to 
have once dwelt in that city ; and I see in the papers continually 
ladies advertising as governesses, and specifying particularly that they 
are " English ladies." 

I received six 5/. post-office orders ; I called four times on as 
many different days at the Post Office before the capital could be 
forthcoming, getting on the third application 20/. (after making a 
great clamour, and vowing that such things were unheard-of in 
England), and on the fourth call the remaining 10/. I saw poor 
people, who may have come from the country with their orders, 
refused payment of an order of some 40J. / and a gentleman who 



SHABBINESS OF BUILDINGS. 75 

tendered a pound-note in payment of a foreign letter, was told to 
" leave his letter and pay some other time." Such things could not 
take place in the hundred-and-second city in England ; and as I do 
not pretend to doctrinise at all, I leave the reader to draw his own 
deductions with regard to the commercial condition and prosperity of 
the second city in Ireland. 

Half-a-dozen of the public buildings I saw were spacious and 
shabby beyond all cockney belief. Adjoining the " Imperial Hotel" is 
a great, large, handsome, desolate reading-room, which was founded 
by a body of Cork merchants and tradesmen, and is the very picture 
of decay. Not Palmyra — not the Russell Institution in Great Coram 
Street — presents a more melancholy appearance of faded greatness. 
Opposite this is another institution, called the Cork Library, where 
there are plenty of books and plenty of kindness to the stranger ; but 
the shabbiness and faded splendour of the place are quite painful. 
There are three handsome Catholic churches commenced of late 
years ; not one of them' is complete : two want their porticoes ; the 
other is not more than thirty feet from the ground, and according to 
the architectural plan was to rise as high as a cathedral. There is 
an Institution, with a fair library of scientific works, a museum, and 
a drawing-school with a supply of casts. The place is in yet more 
dismal condition than the Library : the plasters are spoiled incurably 
for want of a sixpenny feather-brush ; the dust lies on the walls, and 
nobody seems to heed it Two shillings a year would have repaired 
much of the evil which has happened to this institution ; and it is 
folly to talk of inward dissensions and political differences as causing 
the ruin of such institutions : kings or law don't cause or cure dust 
and cobwebs, but indolence leaves them to accumulate, and impru- 
dence will not calculate its income, and vanity exaggerates its own 
powers, and the fault is laid upon that tyrant of a sister kingdom. 
The whole country is filled Avith such failures ; swaggering beginnings 
that could not be carried through ; grand enterprises begun dashingly, 
and ending in shabby compromises or downright ruin. 

I have said something in praise of the manners of the Cork 
ladies : in regard of the gentlemen, a stranger too must remark the 
extraordinary degree of literary taste and talent amongst them, and 
the wit and vivacity of their -conversation. The love for literature 
seems to an Englishman doubly curious. What, generally speaking, 
do a company of grave gentlemen and ladies in Baker Street know 



76 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

about it ? Who ever reads books in the City, or how often does one 
hear them talked about at a Club ? The Cork citizens are the most 
book-loving men I ever met. The town has sent to England a 
number of literary men, of reputation too, and is not a little proud 
of their fame. Everybody seemed to know what Maginn was doing, 
and that Father Prout had a third volume ready, and what was 
Mr. Croker's last article in the Quarterly. The young clerks and 
shopmen seemed as much ait fait as their employers, and many 
is the conversation I heard about the merits of this writer or that 
— Dickens, Ainsworth, Lover, Lever. 

I think, in walking the streets, and looking at the ragged urchins 
crowding there, every Englishman must remark that the superiority 
of intelligence is here, and not with us. I never saw such a collec- 
tion of bright-eyed, wild, clever, eager faces. Mr. Maelise has 
carried away a number of them in his memory ; and the lovers of 
his admirable pictures will find more than one Munster countenance 
under a helmet in company of Macbeth, or in a slashed doublet 
alongside o( Prince Hamlet, or in the very midst of Spain in com- 
pany with Sefior Gil Bias. Gil Bias himself came from Cork, and 
not from Oviedo. 

I listened to two boys almost in rags : they were lolling over 
the quay balustrade, and talking about one of the Ptolemys! and 
talking very well too. One of them had been reading in " Rollin," 
anil was detailing his information with a great deal of eloquence 
and tire. Another day, walking in the Mardyke, I followed three 
boys, not half so well dressed as London errand-boys : one was 
telling the other about Captain Ross's voyages, and spoke with as 
much brightness and intelligence as the best-read gentleman's son 
in England could do. He was as much of a gentleman too, the 
ragged young student ; his manner as good, though perhaps more 
eager and emphatic ; his language was extremely rich, too, and 
eloquent. Does the reader remember his school-days, when half- 
a-dozen lads in the bedrooms took it by turns to tell stories ? how 
poor the language generally was, and how exceedingly poor the 
imagination ! Both of those ragged Irish lads had the making of 
gentlemen, scholars, orators, in them. Apropos of love of reading, 
let me mention here a Dublin story. Dr. Lever, the celebrated 
author of " Harry Lorrequer," went into Dycer's stables to buy a 
horse. The groom who brought the animal out, directly he heard 



PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 77 

who the gentleman was, came out and touched his cap, and pointed 
to a little book in his pocket in a pink cover. " / can't do without 
it, sir" says the man. It was " Harry Lorrequer." I wonder does 
any one of Mr. Rymell's grooms take in " Pickwick," or would they 
have any curiosity to see Mr. Dickens, should he pass that way ? 

The Corkagians are eager for a Munster University ; asking for, 
and having a very good right to, the same privilege which has been 
granted to the chief city of the North of Ireland. It would not fail 
of being a great benefit to the city and to the country too, which 
would have no need to go so far as Dublin for a school of letters and 
medicine ; nor, Whig and Catholic for the most part, to attend a 
Tory and Protestant University. The establishing of an open college 
in Munster would bring much popularity to any Ministry that should 
accord such a boon. People would cry out, " Popery and Infidelity," 
doubtless, as they did when the London University was established ; 
as the same party in Spain would cry out, ''Atheism and Heresy." 
But the time, thank God ! is gone by in England when it was 
necessary to legislate for them; and Sir Robert Peel, in giving his 
adherence to the National Education scheme, has sanctioned the 
principle of which this so much longed-for college would only be a 
consequence. 

The medical charities and hospitals are said to be very well 
arranged, and the medical men of far more than ordinary skill. 
Other public institutions are no less excellent. I was taken over 
the Lunatic Asylum, where everything was conducted with admirable 
comfort, cleanliness, and kindness ; and as for the county gaol, it is 
so neat, spacious, and comfortable, that we can only pray to see 
every cottager in the country as cleanly, well lodged, and well fed as 
the convicts are. They get a pound of bread and a pint of milk 
twice a day : there must be millions of people in this wretched 
country, to whom such food would be a luxury that their utmost 
labours can never by possibility procure for them ; and in going over 
this admirable institution, where everybody is cleanly, healthy, and 
well-clad, I could not but think of the rags and filth of the horrid 
starvation market before mentioned ; so that the prison seemed 
almost a sort of premium for vice. But the people like their free- 
dom, such as it is, and prefer to starve and be ragged as they list. 
They will not go to the poor-houses, except at the greatest extremity, 
and leave them on the slightest chance of existence elsewhere. 



78 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

Walking away from this palace of a prison, you pass amidst all 
sorts of delightful verdure, cheerful gardens, and broad green luscious 
pastures, down to the beautiful River Lee. On one side, the river 
shines away towards the city with its towers and purple steeples ; on 
the other it is broken by little waterfalls and bound in by blue hills, 
an old castle towering in the distance, and innumerable parks and 
villas lying along the pleasant wooded banks. How beautiful the 
scene is, how rich and how happy ! Yonder, in the old Mardyke 
Avenue, you hear the voices of a score of children, and along the 
bright green meadows, where the cows are feeding, the gentle shadows 
of the clouds go playing over the grass. Who can look at such a 
charming scene but with a thankful swelling heart ? 

In the midst of your pleasure, three beggars have hobbled up, 
and are howling supplications to the Lord. One is old and blind, 
and so diseased and hideous, that straightway all the pleasure of the 
sight round about vanishes from you — that livid ghastly face inter- 
posing between you and it. And so it is throughout the south and 
west of Ireland ; the traveller is haunted by the face of the popular 
starvation. It is not the exception, it is the condition of the people. 
In this fairest and richest of countries, men are suffering and starving 
by millions. There are thousands of them at this minute stretched 
in the sunshine at their cabin doors with no work, scarcely any food, 
no hope seemingly. Strong countrymen are lying in bed "for the 
hunger " — because a man lying on his back does not need so much 
food as a person a-foot. Many of them have torn up the unripe 
potatoes from their little gardens, to exist now, and must look to 
winter, when they shall have to suffer starvation and cold too. 
The epicurean, and traveller for pleasure, had better travel any- 
where than here : where there are miseries that one does not dare to 
think of; where one is always feeling how helpless pity is, and how 
hopeless relief, and is perpetually made ashamed of being happy. 

I have just been strolling up a pretty little height called Grattan's 
Hill, that overlooks the town and the river, and where the artist that 
comes Cork- wards may find many subjects for his pencil. There is 
a kind of pleasure-ground at the top of this eminence — a broad walk 
that draggles up to a ruined wall, with a ruined niche in it, and a 
battered stone bench. On the side that shelves down to the water 
are some beeches, and opposite them a row of houses from, which 



SUBURBAN SCENES. 79 

you see one of the prettiest prospects possible — the shining river with 
the craft along the quays, and the busy city in the distance, the active 
little steamers puffing away towards Cove, the farther bank crowned 
with rich woods, and pleasant-looking country-houses : perhaps they 
are tumbling, rickety and ruinous, as those houses close by us, but 
you can't see the ruin from here. 

What a strange air of forlorn gaiety there is about the place ! — 
the sky itself seems as if it did not know whether to laugh or cry, so 
full is it of clouds and sunshine. Little fat, ragged, smiling children 
are clambering about the rocks, and sitting on mossy door-steps, 
tending other children yet smaller, fatter, and more dirty. " Stop till 
I get you a posy " (pronounced pawawawsee), cries one urchin to 
another. " Tell me who is it ye love, Jooly ? " exclaims another, 
cuddling a red-faced infant with a very dirty nose. More of the 
same race are perched about the summer-house, and two wenches 
with large purple feet are flapping some carpets in the air. It is a 
wonder the carpets will bear this kind of treatment at all, and do not 
be off at once to mingle with the elements : I never saw things that 
hung to life by such a frail thread. 

This dismal pleasant place is a suburb of the second city in 
Ireland, and one of the most beautiful spots about the town. What 
a prim, bustling, active, green-railinged, tea-gardened, gravel-walked 
place would it have been in the five-hundredth town in England ! — but 
you see the people can be quite as happy in the rags and without 
the paint, and I hear a great deal more heartiness and affection from 
these children than from their fat little brethren across the Channel. 

If a man wanted to study ruins, here is a house close at hand, not 
forty years old no doubt, but yet as completely gone to wreck as 
Netley Abbey. It is quite curious to study that house ; and a pretty 
ruinous fabric of improvidence, extravagance, happiness, and disaster 
may the imagination build out of it ! In the first place, the owners 
did not wait to finish it before they went to inhabit it ! This is 
written in just such another place ; — a handsome drawing-room with 
a good carpet, a lofty marble mantelpiece, and no paper to the walls. 
The door is prettily painted white and blue, and though not six weeks 
old, a great piece of the wood-work is off already (Peggy uses it to 
prevent the door from banging to) ; and there are some fine chinks 
in every one of the panels, by which my neighbour may see all 
my doings. 



80 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

A couple of score of years, and this house will be just like yonder 
place on Grattan's Hill. 

Like a young prodigal, the house begins to use its constitution 
too early ; and when it should yet (in the shape of carpenters and 
painters) have all its masters and guardians to watch and educate it, 
my house on Grattan's Hill must be a man at once, and enjoy all the 
privileges of strong health ! I would lay a guinea they were making 
punch in that house before they could keep the rain out of it ! that 
they had a dinner-party and ball before the floors were firm or the 
wainscots painted, and a fine tester-bed in the best room, where my 
lady might catch cold in state, in the midst of yawning chimneys, 
creaking window-sashes, and smoking plaster. 

Now look at the door of the coach-house, with its first coat of 
paint seen yet, and a variety of patches to keep the feeble barrier 
together. The loft was arched once, but a great corner has tumbled 
at one end, leaving a gash that unites the windows with the coach- 
house door. Several of the arch-stones are removed, and the whole 
edifice is about as rambling and disorderly as — as the arrangement 
of this book, say. Very tall tufts of mouldy moss are on the draw- 
ing-room windows, with long white heads of grass. As I am sketch- 
ing this — honk ! — a great lean sow comes trampling through the 
slush within the court-yard, breaks down the flimsy apparatus of 
rattling boards and stones which had passed for the gate, and 
walks with her seven squeaking little ones to disport on the grass 
on the hill. 

The drawing-room of the tenement mentioned just now, with its 
pictures, and pulleyless windows and lockless doors, was tenanted by 
a friend who lodged there with a sick wife and a couple of little 
children ; one of whom was an infant in arms. It is not, however, 
the lodger — who is an Englishman — but the kind landlady and her 
family who may well be described here — for their like are hardly to 
be found on the other side of the Channel. Mrs. Fagan is a young 
widow who has seen better days, and that portrait over the grand 
mantelpiece is the picture of her husband that is gone, a handsome 
young man, and well to do at one time as a merchant. But the widow 
(she is as pretty, as lady-like, as kind, and as neat as ever widow 
could be,) has little left to live upon but the rent of her lodgings 
and her furniture ; of which we have seen the best in the drawing- 
room. 



A FAMILY SKETCH. Si 

She has three fine children of her own : there is Minny, and 
Katey, and Patsey, and they occupy indifferently the dining-room on 
the ground floor or the kitchen opposite ; where in the midst of a 
great smoke sits an old nurse, by a copper of potatoes which is always 
bubbling and full. Patsey swallows quantities of them, that's clear : 
his cheeks are as red and shining as apples, and when he roars, you 
are sure that his lungs are in the finest condition. Next door to the 
kitchen is the pantry, and there is a bucketful of the before-men- 
tioned fruit, and a grand service of china for dinner and dessert. 
The kind young widow shows them with no little pride, and says 
with reason that there are few lodging-houses in Cork that can match 
such china as that. They are relics of the happy old times when 
Fagan kept his gig and horse, doubtless, and had his friends to dine 
— the happy prosperous days which she has exchanged for poverty 
and the sad black gown. 

Patsey, Minny, and Katey have made friends with the little 
English people upstairs ; the elder of whom, in the course of a 
month, has as fine a Munster brogue as ever trolled over the lips of any 
born Corkagian. The old nurse carries out the whole united party to 
walk, with the exception of the English baby, that jumps about in 
the arms of a countrywoman of her own. That is, unless one of the 
four Miss Fagans takes her ; for four of them there are, four other 
Miss Fagans, from eighteen downwards to fourteen : — handsome, 
fresh, lively, dancing, bouncing girls. You may always see two or' 
three of them smiling at the parlour-window, and they laugh and 
turn away their heads when any young fellow looks and admires 
them. 

Now, it stands to reason that a young widow of five-and-twenty 
can't be the mother of four young ladies of eighteen downwards ; and, 
if anybody wants to know how they come to be living with the poor 
widow their cousin, the answer is, they are on a visit. Peggy the 
maid says their papa is a gentleman of property, and can " spend his 
eight hundred a year." 

Why don't they remain with the old gentleman then, instead of 
quartering on the poor young widow, who has her own little mouths 
to feed ? The reason is, the old gentleman has gone and married his 
cook; and the daughters have quitted him in a body, refusing to sit 
down to dinner with a person who ought by rights to be in the 
kitchen. The whole family (the Fagans are of good family) take 

6 



82 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

the quarrel up, and here are the young people under shelter of the 
widow. 

Four merrier tender-hearted girls are not to be found in all 
Ireland ; and the only subject of contention amongst them is, which 
shall have the English baby : they are nursing it, and singing to it, 
and dandling it by turns all day long. When they are not singing to 
the baby, they are singing to an old piano : such an old wiry, 
jingling, wheezy piano! It has plenty of work, playing jigs and 
song accompaniments between meals, and acting as a sideboard at 
dinner. I am not sure that it is at rest at night either; but have a 
shrewd suspicion that it is turned into a four-post bed. And for the 
following reason : — 

Every afternoon, at four o'clock, you see a tall old gentleman 
walking leisurely to the house. He is dressed in a long great-coat 
with huge pockets, and in the huge pockets are sure to be some big 
apples for all the children — the English child amongst the rest, and 
she generally has the biggest one. At seven o'clock, you are sure to 
hear a deep voice shouting " Paggy ! " in an awful tone — it is the old 
gentleman calling for his "materials;" which Peggy brings without 
any farther ado ; and a glass of punch is made, no doubt, for every- 
body. Then the party separates : the children and the old nurse 
have long since trampled upstairs ; Peggy has the kitchen for her 
sleeping-apartment, and the four young ladies make it out somehow 
in the back drawing-room. As for the old gentleman, he reposes in 
the parlour ; and it must be somewhere about the piano, for there is 
no furniture in the room except that, a table, a few old chairs, a work- 
box, and a couple of albums. 

The English girl's father met her in the street one day, talking 
confidentially with a tall old gentleman in a great-coat. " Who's 
your friend ? " says the Englishman afterwards to the little girl. 
"Don't you know him, papa?" said the child in the purest brogue. 
" Don't you know him ? — That's Uncle James ! " And so it was : 
in this kind, poor, generous, bare-backed house, the English child 
found a set of new relations ; little rosy brothers and sisters to play 
with, kind women to take the place of the almost dying mother, a 
good old Uncle James to bring her home apples and care for her — 
one and all ready to share their little pittance with her, and to give 
her a place in their simple friendly hearts. God Almighty bless the 
widow and her mite, and all the kind souls under her roof ! 



A FAMILY SKETCH. 83 

How much goodness and generosity — how much purity, fine 
feeling — nay, happiness — may dwell amongst the poor whom we have 
been just looking at ! Here, thank God, is an instance of this happy 
and cheerful poverty : and it is good to look, when one can, at the 
heart that beats under the threadbare coat, as well as the tattered old 
garment itself. Well, please heaven, some of those people whom we 
have been looking at, are as good, and not much less happy : but 
though they are accustomed to their want, the stranger does not 
reconcile himself to it quickly ; and I hope no Irish reader will be 
offended at my speaking of this poverty, not with scorn or ill-feeling, 
but with hearty sympathy and good-will. 



One word more regarding the Widow Fagan's house. When 
Peggy brought in coals for the drawing-room fire, she carried them — 
in what do you think ? "In a coal-scuttle, to be sure," says the 
English reader, down on you as sharp as a needle. 

No, you clever Englishman, it wasn't a coal-scuttle. 

"Well, then, it was in a fire-shovel," says that brightest of wits, 
guessing again. 

No, it -wasn't a. fire-shovel, you heaven-born genius ; and you 
might guess from this until Mrs. Snooks called you up to coffee, and 
you would never find out. It was in something which I have already 
described in Mrs. Fagan's pantry. 

" Oh, I have you now, it was the bucket where the potatoes were ; 
the thlatternly wetch 1 " says Snooks. 

Wrong again ! Peggy brought up the coals — in a china plate ! 

Snooks turned quite white with surprise, and almost chokes him- 
self with his port. " Well," says he, " of all the warn countwith that 
I ever wead of, hang me if Ireland ithn't the wummetht. Coalth in a 
plate ! Mawyann, do you hear that ? In Ireland they alwayth thend 
up their coalth in. a plate 1 " 



84 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

FROM CORK TO BANTRY j WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE CITY OF 

SKIBBEREEN. 

That light four-inside, four-horse coach, the "Skibbereen Perse- 
verance," brought me fifty-two miles to-day, for the sum of three-and- 
sixpence, through a country which is, as usual, somewhat difficult to 
describe. We issued out of Cork by the western road, in which, as the 
Guide-book says, there is something very imposing. " The magnificence 
of the county court-house, the extent, solidity, and characteristic stern- 
ness of the county gaol," were visible to us for a few minutes ; when, 
turning away southward from the pleasant banks of the stream, the 
road took us towards Band on, through a country that is bare and 
ragged-looking, but yet green and pretty ; and it always seems to me, 
like the people, to look cheerful in spite of its wretchedness, or, more 
correctly, to look tearful and cheerful at the same time. 

The coach, like almost every other public vehicle I have seen in 
Ireland, was full to the brim and over it. What can send these rest- 
less people travelling and hurrying about from place to place as they 
do ? I have heard one or two gentlemen hint that they had " busi- 
ness " at this place or that ; and found afterwards that one was going 
a couple of score of miles to look at a mare, another to examine a 
setter-dog, and so on. I did not make it my business to ask on what 
errand the gentlemen on the coach were bound ; though two of them, 
seeing an Englishman, very good-naturedly began chalking out a route 
for him to take, and showing a sort of interest in his affairs which is 
not with us generally exhibited. The coach, too, seemed to have the 
elastic hospitality of some Irish houses ; it accommodated an almost 
impossible number. For the greater part of the journey the little 
guard sat on the roof among the carpet-bags, holding in one hand a 
huge tambour-frame, in the other a band-box marked " Foggarty, 
Hatter." (What is there more ridiculous in the name of Foggarty than 
in that of Smith ? and yet, had Smith been the name, I never should 
have laughed at or remarked it.) Presently by his side clambered a 
green-coated policeman with his carbine, and we had a talk about the 



THE VITRIOL-THROWERS. 85 

vitriol-throwers at Cork, and the sentence just passed upon them. 
The populace has decidedly taken part with the vitriol-throwers : 
parties of dragoons were obliged to surround the avenues of the 
court ; and the judge who sentenced them was abused as he entered 
his carriage, and called an old villain., and many other opprobrious 
names. 

This case the reader very likely remembers. A saw-mill was 
established at Cork, by which some four hundred sawyers were 
thrown out of employ. In order to deter the proprietors of this and 
all other mills from using such instruments further, the sawyers 
determined to execute a terrible vengeance, and cast lots among 
themselves which of their body should fling vitriol into the faces of 
the mill-owners. The men who were chosen by the lot were to 
execute this horrible office on pain of death, and did so, — frightfully 
burning "and blinding one of the gentlemen owning the mill. Great 
rewards were offered for the apprehension of the criminals, and at last 
one of their own body came forward as an approver, and the four 
principal actors in this dreadful outrage were sentenced to be trans- 
ported for life. Crowds of the ragged admirers of these men were 
standing round " the magnificent county court-house " as we passed 
the building. Ours is a strange life indeed What a history of 
poverty and barbarity, and crime and even kindness, was that by 
which we passed before the magnificent county court-house, at eight 
miles an hour ! What a chapter might a philosopher write on them ! 
Look yonder at those two hundred ragged fellow-subjects of yours : 
they are kind, good, pious, brutal, starving. If the priest tells them, 
there is scarce any penance they will not perform ; there is scarcely 
any pitch of misery which they have not been known to endure, nor 
any degree of generosity of which they are not capable : but if a man 
comes among these people, and can afford to take land over their 
heads, or if he invents a machine which can work more economically 
than their labour, they will shoot the man down without mercy, 
murder him, or put him to horrible tortures, and glory almost in what 
they do. There stand the men ; they are only separated from us by 
a few paces : they are as fond of their mothers and children as Ave 
are ; their gratitude for small kindnesses shown to them is extra- 
ordinary; they are Christians as we are; but interfere with their 
interests, and they will murder you without pity. 

It is not revenge so much which these poor fellows take, as a 



S6 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

brutal justice of their own. Now, will it seem a paradox to say, in 
regard to them and their murderous system, that the way to put an 
end to the latter is to kill them no more t Let the priest be able to 
go amongst them and say, The law holds a man's life so sacred that 
it will on no account take it way. No man, nor body of men, has 
a right to meddle with human life : not the Commons of England 
anymore than the Commons of Tipperary. This may cost two or 
three lives, probably, until such time as the system may come to 
be known and understood ; but which will be the greatest economy 
of blood in the end ? 

By this time the vitriol-men were long passed away, and we began 
next to talk about the Cork and London steamboats ; which are 
made to pay, on account of the number of paupers whom the boats 
bring over from London at the charge of that city. The passengers 
found here, as in everything else almost which I have seen as yet, 
another instance of the injury which England inflicts on them. "As 
long as these men are strong and can work," says one, " you keep 
them ; when they are in bad health, you fling them upon us." Nor 
could I convince him that the agricultural gentlemen were perfectly 
free to stay at home if they liked : that we did for them what was 
done for English paupers — sent them, namely, as far as possible on 
the way to their parishes ; nay, that some of them (as I have seen 
with my own eyes) actually saved a bit of money during the harvest, 
and took this cheap way of conveying it and themselves to their 
homes again. But nothing would convince the gentleman that 
there was not some wicked scheming on the part of the English 
in the business ; and, indeed, I find upon almost every other sub- 
ject a peevish and puerile suspiciousness which is worthy of France 
itself. 

By this time we came to a pretty village called Innishannon, upon 
the noble banks of the Bandon river ; leading for three miles by a 
great number of pleasant gentlemen's seats to Bandon town. A good 
number of large mills were on the banks of the stream ; and the chief 
part of them, as in Carlow, useless. One mill we saw was too small 
for the owner's great speculations ; and so he built another and 
larger one : the big mill cost him 10,000/., for which his brothers 
went security ; and, a lawsuit being given against the mill-owner, the 
two mills stopped, the two brothers went off, and yon fine old house, 
in the style of Anne, with terraces and tall chimneys — one of the 



BANDON. 



87 



oldest country-houses I have seen in Ireland — is now inhabited by the 
natural son of the mill-owner, who has more such interesting progeny. 
Then we came to a tall, comfortable house, in a plantation ; opposite 
to which was a stone castle, in its shrubberies on the other side of the 
road. The tall house in the plantation shot the opposite side of the 
road in a duel, and nearly killed him ; on which the opposite side of 
the road built this castle, in order to plague the tall house. They are 
good friends now ; but the opposite side of the road ruined himself in 
building his house. I asked, "Is the house finished ?" — " A good deal 
of it is," was the answer. — And then we came to a brewery, about 
which was a similar story of extravagance and ruin ; but, whether 
before or after entering Bandon, does not matter. 

We did not, it appears, pass through the best part of Bandon : I 
looked along one side of the houses in the long street through which 
we went, to see if there was a window without a broken pane of glass, 
and can declare on my conscience that every single window had 
three broken panes. There we changed horses, in a market-place, 
surrounded, as usual, by beggars ; then we passed through a suburb 
still more wretched and ruinous than the first street, and which, in 
very large letters, is called doyle street : and the next stage was at 
a place called Dunmanway. 






»HJr !%>!'" w 




88 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

Here it was market-day, too, and, as usual, no lack of attendants : 
swarms of peasants in their blue cloaks, squatting by their stalls here 
and there. There is a little miserable old market-house, where a 
few women were selling buttermilk ; another, bullocks' hearts, liver, 
and such like scraps of meat; another had dried mackerel on a board; 
and plenty of people huckstering of course. Round the coach came 
crowds of raggery, and blackguards fawning for money. I wonder 
who gives them any ! I have never seen any one give yet ; and were 
they not even so numerous that it would be impossible to gratify them 
all, there is something in their cant and supplications to the Lord so 
disgusting to me, that I could not give a halfpenny. 

In regard of pretty faces, male or female, this road is very 
unfavourable. I have not seen one for fifty miles ; though, as it was 
market-day all along the road, we have had the opportunity to 
examine vast numbers of countenances. The women are, for the 
most part, stunted, short, with flat Tartar faces ; and the men no 
handsomer. Every woman has bare legs, of course ; and as the 
weather is fine, they are sitting outside their cabins, with the pig, and 
the geese, and the children sporting around. 

Before many doors we saw a little flock of these useful animals, 
and the family pig almost everywhere : you might see him browsing 
and poking along the hedges, his fore and hind leg attached with a 
wisp of hay to check his propensity to roaming. Here and there 
were a small brood of turkeys ; now and then a couple of sheep or a 
single one grazing upon a scanty field, of which the chief crop seemed 
to be thistles and stone ; and, by the side of the cottage, the potato- 
field always. 

The character of the landscape for the most part is bare and sad ; 
except here and there in the neighbourhood of the towns, where 
people have taken a fancy to plant, and where nature has helped 
them, as it almost always will in this country. If we saw a field with 
a good hedge to it, we were sure to see a good crop inside. Many 
a field was there that had neither crop nor hedge. We passed by 
and over many pretty streams, running bright through brilliant emerald 
meadows : and I saw a thousand charming pictures, which want as 
yet an Irish Berghem. A bright road winding up a hill ; on it a 
country cart, with its load, stretching a huge shadow ; the before- 
mentioned emerald pastures and silver rivers in the foreground ; a 
noble sweep of hills rising up from them, and contrasting their magni- 



THE ROAD FROM CORK TO BANTRY. 89 

ficent purple with the green ; in the extreme distance the clear cold 
outline of some far-off mountains, and the white clouds tumbled 
about in the blue sky overhead. It has no doubt struck all persons 
who love to look at nature, how different the skies are in different 
countries. I fancy Irish or French clouds are as characteristic as 
Irish or French landscapes. It would be well to have a daguerreo- 
type and get a series of each. ■ Some way beyond Dunmanway the 
road takes us through a noble savage country of rocks and heath. 
Nor must the painter forget long black tracts of bog here and there, 
and the water glistening brightly at the places where the turf has been 
cut away. Add to this, and chiefly by the banks of rivers, a ruined 
old castle or two : some were built by the Danes, it is said. The 
O'Connors, the O'Mahonys, the O'Driscolls were lords of many 
others, and their ruined towers may be seen here and along the sea. 

Near Dunmanway that great coach, " The Skibbereen Industry," 
dashed by us at seven miles an hour ; a wondrous vehicle : there 
were gaps between every one of the panels ; you could see daylight 
through-and-through it. Like our machine, it was full, with three 
complementary sailors on the roof, as little harness as possible to the 
horses, and as long stages as horses can well endure : ours were each 
eighteen-mile stages. About eight miles from Skibbereen a one-horse 
car met us, and carried away an offshoot of passengers to Bantry. 
Five passengers and their luggage, and a very wild, steep road : all 
this had one poor little pony to overcome ! About the towns there 
were some show of gentlemen's cars, smart and well appointed, and 
on the road great numbers of country carts : an army of them met us 
coming from Skibbereen, and laden with grey sand for manure. 

Before you enter the city of Skibbereen, the tall new poor-house 
presents itself to the eye of the traveller; of the common model, 
being a bastard-Gothic edifice, with a profusion of cottage-ornee (is 
cottage masculine or feminine in French ? ) — of cottage-ornee roofs, 
and pinnacles, and insolent-looking stacks of chimneys. It is built for 
900 people, but as yet not more than 400 have been induced to live 
in it ; the beggars preferring the freedom of their precarious trade to 
the dismal certainty within its Avails. Next we come to the chapel, a 
very large, respectable-looking building of dark-grey stone ; and 
presently, behold, by the crowd of blackguards in waiting, " The 
Skibbereen Perseverance " has found its goal, and you are inducted 
to the " hotel " opposite. 



90 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

Some gentlemen were at the coach, besides those of lower degree. 
Here was a fat fellow with large whiskers, a geranium, and a cigar ; 
yonder a tall handsome old man that I would swear was a dragoon 
on half-pay. He had a little cap, a Taglioni coat, a pair of beautiful 
spaniels, and a pair of knee-breeches which showed a very handsome 
old leg ; and his object seemed to be to invite everybody to dinner 
as they got off the coach. No doubt he has seen the " Skibbereen 
Perseverance" come in ever since it was a "Perseverance." It is 
wonderful to think what will interest men in prisons or country 
towns ! 

There is a dirty coffee-room, with a strong smell of whisky; 
indeed three young " materialists " are employed at the moment : 
and I hereby beg to offer an apology to three other gentlemen — the 
captain, another, and the gentleman of the geranium, who had 
caught hold of a sketching-stool which is my property, and were 
stretching it, and sitting upon it, and wondering, and talking of it, 
when the owner came in, and they bounced off to their seats like so 
many school-boys. Dirty as the place was, this was no reason why it 
should not produce an exuberant dinner of trout and Kerry mutton ; 
after which Dan the waiter, holding up a dingy decanter, asks how 
much whisky I'd have. 

That calculation need not be made here ; and if a man sleeps 
well, has he any need to quarrel with the appointments of his bed- 
room, and spy out the deficiencies of the land ? As it was Sunday, 
it was impossible for me to say what sort of shops " the active and 
flourishing town " of Skibbereen contains. There were some of the 
architectural sort, viz. with gilt letters and cracked mouldings, and 
others into which I thought I saw the cows walking ; but it was only 
into their little cribs and paddocks at the back of the shops. There 
is a trim Wesleyan chapel, without any broken windows ; a neat 
church standing modestly on one side. The Lower Street crawls along 
the river to a considerable extent, having by-streets and boulevards 
of cabins here and there. 

The people came flocking into the place by hundreds, and you 
saw their blue cloaks dotting the road and the bare open plains 
beyond. The men came with shoes and stockings to-day, the 
women all bare-legged, and many of them might be seen washing 
their feet in the stream before they went up to the chapel. The 
street seemed to be lined on either side with blue cloaks, squatting 



SKIBBERE.EN. 91 

along the doorways as is their wont. Among these, numberless cows 
were walking to and fro, and pails of milk passing, and here and 
there a hound or two went stalking about. Dan the waiter says 
they are hunted by the handsome old captain who was yesterday 
inviting everybody to dinner. 

Anybody at eight o'clock of a Sunday morning in summer may be- 
hold the above scene from a bridge just outside the town. He may 
add to it the river, with one or two barges lying idle upon it ; a flag 
flying at what looks like a custom-house ; bare country all around ; and 
the chapel before him, with a swarm of the dark figures round about it. 

I went into it, not without awe (for, as I confessed before, I 
always feel a sort of tremor on going into a Catholic place of 
worship : the candles, and altars, and mysteries, the priest and his 
robes, and nasal chaunting, and wonderful genuflexions, will frighten 
me as long as I live). The chapel-yard was filled with men and 
women ; a couple of shabby old beadles were at the gate, with 
copper shovels to collect money ; and inside the chapel four or five 
hundred people were on their knees, and scores more of the blue- 
mantles came in, dropping their curtsies as they entered, and then 
taking their places on the flags. 

And now the pangs of hunger beginning to make themselves felt, 
it became necessary for your humble servant (after making several 
useless applications to a bell, which properly declined to work on 
Sundays) to make a personal descent to the inn-kitchen, where was 
not a bad study for a painter. It was a huge room, with a peat fire 
burning, and a staircase walking up one side of it, on which stair was 
a damsel in a partial though by no means picturesque dishabille. 
The cook had just come in with a great frothing pail of milk, and sat 
with her arms folded; the ostler's boy sat dangling his legs from 
the table ; the ostler was dandling a noble little boy of a year old, at 
whom Mrs. Cook likewise grinned delighted. Here, too, sat Mr. 
Dan the waiter; and no wonder the breakfast was delayed, for all 
three of these worthy domestics seemed delighted with the infant. 

He was handed over to the gentleman's arms for the space of 
thirty seconds; the gentleman being the father of a family, and of 
course an amateur. 

" Say Dan for the gentleman," says the delighted cook. 

" Dada," says the baby ; at which the assembly grinned with joy : 
and Dan promised I should have my breakfast " in a hurry." 



92 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

But of all the wonderful things to be seen in Skibbereen, Dan's 
pantry is the most wonderful : every article within is a makeshift, 
and has been ingeniously perverted from its original destination. 
Here lie bread, blacking, fresh-butter, tallow-candles, dirty knives — 
all in the same cigar-box with snuff, milk, cold bacon, brown-sugar, 
broken teacups and bits of soap. No pen can describe that esta- 
blishment, as no English imagination could have conceived it. But 
lo ! the sky has cleared after a furious fall of rain — (in compliance 
with Dan's statement to that effect, " that the weather would be fine ") 
— and a car is waiting to carry us to Loughine. 

Although the description of Loughine can make but a poor figure 
in a book, the ride thither is well worth the traveller's short labour. 
You pass by one of the cabin-streets out of the town into a country 
which for a mile is rich with grain, though bare of trees ; then through 
a boggy bleak district, from which you enter into a sort of sea of 
rocks, with patches of herbage here and there. Before the traveller, 
almost all the way, is a huge pile of purple mountain, on which, as 
one comes nearer, one perceives numberless waves and breaks, as 
you see small waves on a billow in the sea ; then clambering up a 
hill, we look down upon a bright green flat of land, with the lake 
beyond it, girt round by grey melancholy hills. The water may be a 
mile in extent ; a cabin tops the mountain here and there ; gentle- 
men have erected one or two anchorite pleasure-houses on the banks, 
as cheerful as a summer-house would be on Salisbury Plain. I felt 
not sorry to have seen this lonely lake, and still happier to leave it. 
There it lies with crags all round it, in the midst of desolate plains : 
it escapes somewhere to the sea ; its waters are salt : half-a-dozen 
boats lie here and there upon its banks, and we saw a small crew of 
boys plashing about and swimming in it, laughing and yelling. It 
seemed a shame to disturb the silence so. 

The crowd of swaggering " gents" (I don't know the correspond- 
ing phrase in the Anglo-Irish vocabulary to express a shabby dandy) 
awaiting the Cork mail, which kindly goes twenty miles out of its way 
to accommodate the town of Skibbereen, was quite extraordinary. 
The little street was quite blocked up with shabby gentlemen, and 
shabby beggars, awaiting this daily phenomenon. The man who had 
driven us to Loughine did not fail to ask for his fee as driver ; and 
then, having received it, came forward in his capacity of boots and 
received another remuneration. The ride is desolate, bare, and yet 



THE BANTRY ROAD. 93 

beautiful. There are a set of hills that keep one company the whole 
way ; they were partially hidden in a grey sky, which flung a general 
hue of melancholy too over the green country through which we 
passed. There was only one wretched village along the road, but no 
lack of population : ragged people who issued from their cabins as 
the coach passed, or were sitting by the wayside. Everybody seems 
sitting by the wayside here : one never sees this general repose in 
England— a sort of ragged lazy contentment. All the children seem 
to be on the watch for the coach ; waited very knowingly and care- 
fully their opportunity, and then hung on by scores behind. What a 
pleasure to run over flinty roads with bare feet, to be whipped off, 
and to walk back to the cabin again ! These were very different 
cottages to those neat ones I had seen in Kildare. The wretched- 
ness of them is quite painful to look at ; many of the potato-gardens 
were half dug up, and it is only the first week in August, near three 
months before the potato is ripe and at full growth ; and the winter 
still six months away. There were chapels occasionally, and smart 
new-built churches— one of them has a congregation of ten souls, the 
coachman told me. Would it not be better that the clergyman should 
receive them in his room, and that the church-building money should 
be bestowed otherwise ? — 

At length, after winding up all sorts of dismal hills speckled with 
wretched hovels, a ruinous mill every now and then, black bog-lands, 
and small winding streams, breaking here and there into little falls, 
we come upon some ground well tilled and planted, and descending 
(at no small risk from stumbling horses) a bleak long hill, we see the 
water before us, and turning to the right by the handsome little park 
of Lord Bearhaven, enter Bantry. The harbour is beautiful. Small 
mountains in green undulations rising on the opposite side ; great 
grey ones farther back ; a pretty island in the midst of the water, 
which is wonderfully bright and calm. A handsome yacht, and two 
or three vessels with their Sunday colours out, were lying in the bay. 
It looked like a seaport scene at a theatre, gay, cheerful, neat, and 
picturesque. At a little distance the town, too, is very pretty. 
There are some smart houses on the quays, a handsome court-house 
as usual, a fine large hotel, and plenty of people flocking round the 
wonderful coach. 

The town is most picturesquely situated, climbing up a wooded 
hill, with numbers of neat cottages here and there, an ugly church 



94 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

with an air of pretension, and a large grave Roman Catholic chapel 
the highest point of the place. The Main Street was as usual thronged 
with the squatting blue cloaks, carrying on their eager trade of butter- 
milk and green apples, and such cheap wares. With the exception 
of this street and the quay, with their whitewashed and slated houses, 
it is a town of cabins. The wretchedness of some of them is quite 
curious : I tried to make a sketch of a row which lean against an 
old wall, and are built upon a rock that tumbles about in the oddest 
and most fantastic shapes, with a brawling waterfall dashing down a 
channel in the midst. These are, it appears, the beggars' houses : 
any one may build a lodge against that wall, rent-free ; and such 
places were never seen ! As for drawing them, it was in vain to try ; 
one might as well make a sketch of a bundle of rags. An ordinary 
pigsty in England is really more comfortable. Most of them were 
not six feet long or five feet high, built of stones huddled together, a 
hole being left for the people to creep in at, a ruined thatch to keep 
out some little portion of the rain. The occupiers of these places sat 
at their doors in tolerable contentment, or the children came down 
and washed their feet in the water. I declare I believe a Hottentot 
kraal has more comforts in it : even to write of the place makes one 
unhappy, and the words move slow. But in the midst of all this 
misery there is an air of actual cheerfulness ; and go but a few 
score yards off, and these wretched hovels lying together look really 
picturesque and pleasing. 



( 95 ) 



CHAPTER IX. 

RAINY DAYS AT GLENGARIFF. 

A smart two-horse car takes the traveller thrice a week from Bantry 
to Killarney, by way of Glengariff and Kenmare. Unluckily, the 
rain was pouring down furiously as we passed to the first-named 
places, and we had only opportunity to see a part of the astonishing 
beauty of the country. What sends picturesque tourists to the Rhine 
and Saxon Switzerland ? within five miles round the pretty inn of 
Glengariff there is a country of the magnificence of which no pen can 
give an idea. I would like to be a great prince, and bring a train 
of painters over to make, if they could, and according to their several 
capabilities, a set of pictures of the place. Mr. Creswick would find 
such rivulets and waterfalls, surrounded by a luxuriance of foliage 
and verdure that only his pencil can imitate. As for Mr. Catermole, 
a red-shanked Irishman should carry his sketching-books to all sorts 
of wild noble heights, and vast, rocky valleys, where he might please 
himself by piling crag upon crag, and by introducing, if he had a 
mind, some of the wild figures which peopled this country in old days. 
There is the Eagles' Nest, for instance, regarding which the Guide- 
book gives a pretty legend. The Prince of Bantry being conquered 
by the English soldiers, fled away, leaving his Princess and children 
to the care of a certain faithful follower of his, who was to provide 
them with refuge and food. But the whole country was overrun by 
the conquerors ; all the flocks driven away by them, all the houses 
ransacked, and the crops burnt off the ground, and the faithful servitor 
did not know where he should find a meal or a resting-place for the 
unhappy Princess O'Donovan. 

He made, however, a sort of shed by the side of a mountain, 
composing it of sods and stones so artfully that no one could tell but 
that it was a part of the hill itself; and here, having speared or other- 
wise obtained a salmon, he fed their Highnesses for the first day; 
trusting to heaven for a meal when the salmon should be ended. 

The Princess O'Donovan and her princely family soon came to 
an end of the fish ; and cried out for something more. 



96 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



So the faithful servitor, taking with him a rope and his little son 
Shamus, mounted up to the peak where the eagles rested ; and, from 
the spot to which he climbed, saw their nest, and the young eaglets 
in it, in a cleft below the precipice. 




" Now," said he, " Shamus my son, you must take these thongs 
with you, and I will let you down by the rope " (it was a straw-rope, 
which he had made himself, and though it might be considered a 
dangerous thread to hang by in other countries, you'll see plenty of 
such contrivances in Ireland to the present day). 

" I will let you down by the rope, and you must tie the thongs 
round the necks of the eaglets, not so as to choke them, but to prevent 
them from swallowing much." So Shamus went down and did as his 
father bade him, and came up again when the eaglets were doctored. 

Presently the eagles came home : one bringing a rabbit and the 
other a grouse. These they dropped into the nest for the young 
ones ; and soon after went away in quest of other adventures. 

Then Shamus went down into the eagles' nest again, gutted the 
grouse and rabbit, and left the garbage to the eaglets (as was their 
right), and brought away the rest. And so the Princess and Princes 
had game that night for their supper. How long they lived in this 
way, the Guide-book does not say : but let us trust that the Prince, 



GLENGARIFF. 97 

if he did not come to his own again, was at least restored to his 
family and decently mediatized : and, for my part, I have very little 
doubt but that Shamus, the gallant young eagle-robber, created a 
favourable impression upon one of the young Princesses, and (after 
many adventures in which he distinguished himself,) was accepted by 
her Highness for a husband, and her princely parents for a gallant 
son-in-law. 

And here, while we are travelling to Glengariff, and ordering 
painters about with such princely liberality (by the way, Mr. Stanfield 
should have a boat in the bay, and paint both rock and sea at his 
ease), let me mention a wonderful, awful incident of real life which 
occurred on the road. About four miles from Bantry, at a beautiful 
wooded place, hard by a mill and waterfall, up rides a gentleman to 
the car with his luggage, going to Killarney races. The luggage 
consisted of a small carpet-bag and a pistol-case. About two miles 
farther on, a fellow stops the car: "Joe," says he, "my master is 
going to ride to Killarney, so you please to take his luggage." The 
luggage consisted of a small carpet-bag, and — a pistol-case as before. 
Is this a gentleman's usual travelling baggage in Ireland ? 

As there is more rain in this country than in any other, and as, there- 
fore, naturally the inhabitants should be inured to the weather, and made 
to despise an inconvenience which they cannot avoid, the travelling- 
conveyances are arranged so that you may get as much practice in 
being wet as possible. The traveller's baggage is stowed in a place 
between the two rows of seats, and which is not inaptly called the well, 
as in a rainy season you might possibly get a bucketful of water out 
of that orifice. And I confess I saw, with a horrid satisfaction, the 
pair of pistol-cases lying in this moist aperture, with water pouring 
above them and lying below them ; nay, prayed that all such weapons 
might one day be consigned to the same fate. But as the waiter at 
Bantry, in his excessive zeal to serve me, had sent my portmanteau 
back to Cork by the coach, instead of allowing me to carry it with 
me to Killarney, and as the rain had long since begun to insinuate 
itself under the seat-cushion and through the waterproof apron of the 
car, I dropped off at Glengariff, and dried the only suit of clothes I 
had by the kitchen-fire. The inn is very pretty : some thorn-trees 
stand before it, where many bare-legged people were lolling, in spite 
of the weather. A beautiful bay stretches out before the house, the 
full tide washing the thorn-trees ; mountains rise on either side of the 

7 



98 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

little bay, and there is an island, with a castle in it, in the midst, near 
which a yacht was moored. But the mountains were hardly visible for 
the mist, and the yacht, island, and castle looked as if they had been 
washed against the flat gray sky in Indian-ink. 

The day did not clear up sufficiently to allow me to make any 
long excursion about the place, or indeed to see a very wide prospect 
round about it : at a few hundred yards, most of the objects were 
enveloped in mist ; but even this, for a lover of the picturesque, had 
its beautiful effect, for you saw the hills in the foreground pretty clear, 
and covered with their wonderful green, while immediately behind 
them rose an immense blue mass of mist and mountain that served 
to relieve (to use the painter's phrase) the nearer objects. Annexed 
to the hotel is a flourishing garden, where the vegetation is so great 
that the landlord told me it was all he could do to check the trees 
from growing : round about the bay, in several places, they come 
clustering down to the water's edge, nor does the salt-water interfere 
with them. 

Winding up a hill to the right, as you quit the inn, is the beautiful 
road to the cottage and park of Lord Bantry. One or two parties on 
pleasure bent went so far as the house, and were partially consoled 
for the dreadful rain which presently poured down upon them, by 
wine, whisky, and refreshments which the liberal owner of the 
house sent out to them. I myself had only got a few hundred yards 
when the rain overtook me, and sent me for refuge into a shed, where 
a blacksmith had arranged a rude furnace and bellows, and where he 
was at work, with a rough gilly to help him, and of course a lounger 
or two to look on. 

The scene was exceedingly wild and picturesque, and I took out a 
sketch-book and began to draw. The blacksmith was at first very 
suspicious of the operation which I had commenced nor did the 
poor fellow's sternness at all yield until I made him a present of a 
shilling to buy tobacco — when he, his friend, and his son became 
good-humoured, and said their little say. This was the first shilling 
he had earned these three years : he was a small farmer, but was 
starved out, and had set up a forge here, and was trying to get a few 
pence. What struck me was the great number of people about the 
place. We had at least twenty visits while the sketch was being made; 
cars, and single and double horsemen, were continually passing; 
between the intervals of the shower a couple of ragged old women 



' THREE ENGLISH TOURISTS. 99 

would creep out from some hole and display baskets of green apples 
for sale : wet or not, men and women were lounging up and down the 
road. You would have thought it was a fair, and yet there was not 
even a village at this place, only the inn and post-house, by which the 
cars to Tralee pass thrice a week. 

The weather, instead of mending, on the second day was worse 
than ever. All the view had disappeared now under a rushing rain, 
of which I never saw anything like the violence. . We were visited by 
five maritime — nay, buccaneering-looking gentlemen in moustaches, 
with fierce caps and jackets, just landed from a yacht : and then the 
car brought us three Englishmen wet to the skin and thirsting for 
whisky-and-water. 

And with these three Englishmen a great scene occurred, such as 
we read of in Smollett's and Fielding's inns. One was a fat old 
gentleman from Cambridge — who, I was informed, was a Fellow of a 
college in that university, but whom I shrewdly suspect* to be butler 
or steward of the same. The younger men, burly, manly, good- 
humoured fellows of seventeen stone, were the nephews of the elder 
— who, says one, "could draw a cheque for his thousand pounds." 

Two-and-twenty years before, on landing at the Pigeon-House at 
Dublin, the old gentleman had been cheated by a carman, and his 
firm opinion seemed to be that all carmen — nay, all Irishmen — 
were cheats. 

And a sad proof of this depravity speedily showed itself: for 
having hired a three-horse car at Killarney, which was to carry them 
to Bantry, the Englishmen saw, with immense indignation, after they 
had drunk a series of glasses of whisky, that the three-horse car had 
been removed, a one-horse vehicle standing in its stead. 

Their wrath no pen can describe. " I tell you they are all so !" 
shouted the elder. " When I landed at the Pigeon-House . . . ." 
" Bring me a postchaise !" roars the second. " Waiter, get some more 
whisky !" exclaims the third. " If they don't send us on with three 
horses, I'll stop here for a week." Then issuing, with his two young 
friends, into the passage, to harangue the populace assembled there, 
the elder Englishman began a speech about dishonesty, " d — d rogues 
and thieves, Pigeon-House : he was a gentleman, and wouldn't be 
done, d — n his eyes and everybody's eyes." Upon the affrighted 

* The suspicion turned out to be very correct. The gentleman is the respected 
cook of C , as I learned afterwards from a casual Cambridge man. 

LOf C 



ioo THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

landlord, who came to interpose, they all fell with great ferocity : the 
elder man swearing, especially, that he "would write to Lord 
Lansdowne regarding his conduct, likewise to Lord Bandon, also to 
Lord Bantry : he was a gentleman ; he'd been cheated in the year 
1815, on his first landing at the Pigeon-House: and, d — n the Irish, 
they were all alike." After roaring and cursing for half-an-hour, a 
gentleman at the door, seeing the meek bearing of the landlord — who 
stood quite lost and powerless in the whirlwind of rage that had been 
excited about his luckless ears — said, " If men cursed and swore in 
that way in his house, he would know how to put them out." 

" Put me out !" says one of the young men, placing himself before 
the fat old blasphemer his relative. " Put me out, my fine fellow ! " 
But it was evident the Irishman did not like his customer. " Put me 
out ! " roars the old gentleman, from behind his young protector. 

" my eyes, who are you, sir? who are you, sir? I insist on 

knowing who you are." 

" And who are you ? " asks the Irishman. 

"Sir, I'm a gentleman, and pay ?ny wayl and as soon as I get 
into Bantry, I swear I'll write a letter to Lord Bandon Bantry, and 
complain of the treatment I have received here." 

Now, as the unhappy landlord had not said one single word, and 
as, on the contrary, to the annoyance of the whole house, the stout 
old gentleman from Cambridge had been shouting, raging, and cursing 
for two hours, I could not help, like a great ass as I was, coming 
forward and (thinking the landlord might be a tenant of Lord Ban try's) 
saying, " Well, sir, if you write and say the landlord has behaved ill, 
I will write to say that he has acted with extraordinary forbearance 
and civility." 

O fool ! to interfere in disputes where one set of the disputants 
have drunk half-a-dozen glasses of whisky in the middle of the day ! 
No sooner had I said this than the other young man came and fell 
upon me, and in the course, of a few minutes found leisure to tell me 
" that I was no gentleman ; that I was ashamed to give my name, or 
say where I lived ; that I was a liar, and didn't live in London, and 
couldn't mention the name of a single respectable person there ; that 
he was a merchant and tradesman, and hid his quality from no one ; " 
and, finally, ' ' that though bigger than himself, there was nothing he 
would like better than that 1 should come out on the green and 
stand to him like a man." 



THREE ENGLISH TOURISTS. 101 

This invitation, although repeated several times, I refused with as 
much dignity as I could assume ; partly because I was sober and 
cool, while the other was furious and drunk ; also because I felt a 
strong suspicion that in about ten minutes the man would manage to 
give me a tremendous beating, which I did not merit in the least ; 
thirdly, because a victory over him would not have been productive 
of the least pleasure to me ; and lastly, because there was something 
really honest and gallant in the fellow coming out to defend his old 
relative. Both of the younger men would have fought like tigers for 
this disreputable old gentleman, and desired no better sport. The 
last I heard of the three was that they and the driver made their 
appearance before a magistrate in Bantry ; and a pretty story will the 
old man have to tell to his club at the " Hoop," or the " Red Lion," 
of those swindling Irish, and the ill-treatment he met with in their 
country. 

As for the landlord, the incident will be a blessed theme of con- 
versation to him for a long time to come. I heard him discoursing 
of it in the passage during the rest of the day ; and next morning 
when I opened my window and saw with much delight the bay clear 
and bright as silver — except where the green hills were reflected in it, 
the blue sky above, and the purple mountains round about with only 
a few clouds veiling their peaks — the first thing I heard was the 
voice of Mr. Eccles repeating the story to a new customer. 

" I thought thim couldn't be gintlemin," was the appropriate 
remark of Mr. Tom the waiter, " from the way in which they took 
their whishky — raw with cold wather, widout mixing or inything? 
Could an Irish waiter give a more excellent definition of the un- 
genteel ? 

At nine o'clock in the morning of the next day, the unlucky 
car which had carried the Englishmen to Bantry came back to 
Glengariff, and as the morning was very fine, I was glad to take 
advantage of it, and travel some five-and-thirty English miles to 
Killarney. 



io2 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER X. 

FROM GLENGARIFF TO KILLARNEY. 

The Irish car seems accommodated for any number of persons: it 
appeared to be full when we left Glengariff, for a traveller from Bear- 
haven, and the five gentlemen from the yacht, took seats upon it 
with myself, and we fancied it was impossible more than seven should 
(ravel by such a conveyance; but the driver showed the capabilities 
of his vehicle presently. The journey from Glengariff to Kenmare is 
one of astonishing beauty ; and I have seen Killarney since, and am 
sure that Glengariff loses nothing by comparison with this most 
famous of lakes. Rock, wood, and sea stretch around the traveller 
— a thousand delightful pictures: the landscape is at first wild with- 
out being fierce, immense woods and plantations enriching the valleys 
— beautiful streams to be seen everywhere. 

Here again I was surprised at the great population along the 
road ; for one saw but few cabins, and there is no village between 
Glengariff and Kenmare. But men and women were on banks and 
in fields; children, as usual, came trooping up to the car; and the 
jovial men of the yacht had great conversations with most of the 
persons whom Ave met on the road. A merrier set of fellows it were 
hard to meet. " Should you like anything to drink, sir?" says one, 
commencing the acquaintance. "We have the best whisky in the 
Avorld, and plenty of porter in the basket." Therewith the jolly sea- 
men produced a long bottle of grog, which was passed round from 
one to another ; and then began singing, shouting, laughing, roaring 
for the whole journey. " British sailors have a knack, pull away — ho, 
boys ! " " Hurroo, my fine fellow ! does your mother know you're out ?" 
"I lurroo, Tim Herlihy ! you're a fluke, Tim Herlihy." One man sang 
on the roof, one hurrodd to the echo, another apostrophized the 
aforesaid Herlihy as he passed grinning on a car; a third had a 
pocket-handkerchief Haunting from a pole, with which he performed 
exercises in the face of any horseman whom we met; and great were 
(heir yells as the ponies shied off at the salutation and the riders 
swerved in their saddles. In the midst of this rattling chorus we 



CAR TRAVELLING. 103 

went along : gradually the country grew wilder and more desolate, 
and we passed through a grim mountain region, bleak and bare, the 
road winding round some of the innumerable hills, and once or twice 
by means of a tunnel rushing boldly through them. One of these 
tunnels, they say, is a couple of hundred yards long ; and a pretty 
howling, I need not say, was made through that pipe of rock by the 
jolly yacht's crew. " We saw you sketching in the blacksmith's shed 
at Glengariff," says one, " and we wished we had you on board. 
Such a jolly life we led of it !" — They roved about the coast, they 
said, in their vessel ; they feasted off the best of fish, mutton, and 
whisky ; they had Gamble's turtle-soup on board, and fun from morn- 
ing till night, and vice versa. Gradually it came out that there was 
not, owing to the tremendous rains, a dry corner in their ship : that 
they slung two in a huge hammock in the cabin, and that one of 
their crew had been ill, and shirked off. What a wonderful thing 
pleasure is ! To be wet all day and night; to be scorched and blistered 
by the sun and rain ; to beat in and out of little harbours, and to 
exceed diurnally upon whisky-punch — 'faith, London, and an arm- 
chair at the club, are more to the tastes of some men. 

After much mountain-work of ascending and descending, (in which 
latter operation, and by the side of precipices that make passing 
cockneys rather squeamish, the carman drove like mad to the whoop- 
ing and screeching of the red-rovers,) we at length came to Kenmare, 
of which all that I know is that it lies prettily in a bay or arm of the 
sea ; that it is approached by a little hanging-bridge, which seems to 
be a wonder in these parts; that it is a miserable little place when you 
enter it ; and that, finally, a splendid luncheon of all sorts of meat 
and excellent cold salmon may sometimes be had for a shilling at the 
hotel of the place. It is a great vacant house, like the rest of them, 
and would frighten people in England ; but after a few days one 
grows used to the Castle Rackrent style. I am not sure that there is 
not a certain sort of comfort to be had in these rambling rooms, 
and among these bustling, blundering waiters, which one does not 
always meet with in an orderly English house of entertainment. 

After discussing the luncheon, we found the car with fresh horses, 
beggars, idlers, policemen, &c, standing round of course; and now 
the miraculous vehicle, which had held hitherto seven with some 
difficulty, was called upon to accommodate thirteen. 

A pretty noise would our three Englishmen of yesterday — nay, any 



104 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

other Englishmen for the matter of that — have made, if coolly called 
upon to admit an extra party of four into a mail-coach ! The yacht's 
crew did not make a single objection ; a couple clambered up on the 
roof, where they managed to locate themselves with wonderful inge- 
nuity, perched upon hard wooden chests, or agreeably reposing 
upon the knotted ropes which held them together : one of the new 
passengers scrambled between the driver's legs, where he held on some- 
how, and the rest were pushed and squeezed atonishingly in the car. 

Now the fact must be told, that five of the new passengers (I 
don't count a little boy besides) were women, and very pretty, gay, 
frolicksome, lively, kind-hearted, innocent women too ; and for the 
rest of the journey there was no end of laughing and shouting, and 
singing, and hugging, so that the caravan presented the appearance 
which is depicted in the frontispiece of this work. 

Now it may be a wonder to some persons, that with such a cargo 
the carriage did not upset, or some of us did not fall off; to which the 
answer is that we did fall off. A very pretty woman fell off, and 
showed a pair of never-mind-what-coloured garters, and an interesting 
English traveller fell off too : but heaven bless you ! these cars are 
made to fall off from ; and considering the circumstances of the case, 
and in the same company, I would rather fall off than not. A great 
number of polite allusions and genteel inquiries were, as may be 
imagined, made by the jolly boat's crew. But though the lady 
affected to be a little angry at first, she was far too good-natured to 
be angry long, and at last fairly burst out laughing with the pas- 
sengers. We did not fall off again, but held on very tight, and just as 
we were reaching Killarney, saw somebody else fall off from another 
car. But in this instance the gentleman had no lady to tumble with. 

For almost half the way from Kenmare, this wild, beautiful road 
commands views of the famous lake and vast blue mountains about 
Killarney. Turk, Tomies, and Mangerton were clothed in purple 
like kings in mourning ; great heavy clouds were gathered round their 
heads, parting away every now and then, and leaving their noble 
features bare. The lake lay for some time underneath us, dark and 
blue, with dark misty islands in the midst. On the right-hand side of 
the road would be a precipice covered with a thousand trees, or a 
green rocky flat, with a reedy mere in the midst, and other mountains 
rising as far as we could see. I think of that diabolical tune in " Der 
Freischutz " while passing through this sort of country. Every now 



KILLARNEY. 105 

and then, in the midst of some fresh country or inclosed trees, or at 
a turn of the road, you lose the sight of the great big awful moun- 
tain : hut, like the aforesaid tune in " Der Freischutz," it is always there 
close at hand. You feel that it keeps you company. And so it was 
that we rode by dark old Mangerton, then presently past Muckross, 
and then through two miles of avenues of lime-trees, by numerous 
lodges and gentlemen's seats, across an old bridge, where you see the 
mountains again and the lake, until, by Lord Kenmare's house, a 
hideous row of houses informed us that we were at Killarney. 

Here my companion suddenly let go my hand, and by a certain 
uneasy motion of the waist, gave me notice to withdraw the other 
too ; and so we rattled up to the " Kenmare Arms : " and so ended, 
not without a sigh on my part, one of the merriest six-hour rides that 
five yachtmen, one cockney, five women and a child, the carman, and 
a countryman with an alpeen, ever took in their lives. 

As for my fellow-companion, she would hardly speak the next day ; 
but all the five maritime men made me vow and promise that I would 
go and see them at Cork, where I should have horses to ride, the 
fastest yacht out of the harbour to sail in, and the best of whisky, 
claret, and welcome. Amen, and may every single person who buys 
a copy of this book meet with the same deserved fate. 

The town of Killarney was in a violent state of excitement with a 
series of horse-races, hurdle-races, boat-races, and stag-hunts by land 
and water, which were taking place, and attracted a vast crowd from 
all parts of the kingdom. All the inns were full, and lodgings cost 
five shillings a day — nay, more in some places ; for though my land- 
lady, Mrs. Macgillicuddy, charges but that sum, a leisurely old gentle- 
man whom I never saw in my life before made my acquaintance by 
stopping me in the street yesterday, and said he paid a pound a day 
for his two bed-rooms. The old gentleman is eager for company ; and 
indeed, when a man travels alone, it is wonderful how little he cares to 
select his society ; how indifferent company pleases him ; how a good 
fellow delights him : how sorry he is when the time for parting comes, 
and he has to walk off alone, and begin the friendship-hunt over again. 
The first sight I witnessed at Killarney was a race-ordinary, where, 
for a sum of twelve shillings, any man could take his share of turbot, 
salmon, venison, and beef, with port, and sherry, and whisky-punch 
at discretion. Here were the squires of Cork and Kerry, one or two 
Englishmen, whose voices amidst the rich humming brogue round 



106 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

about sounded quite affected (not that they were so, but there seems 
a sort of impertinence in the shrill, high-pitched tone of the English 
voice here). At the head of the table, near the chairman, sat some 
brilliant young dragoons, neat, solemn, dull, with huge moustaches, 
and boots polished to a nicety. 

And here of course the conversation was of the horse, horsey : 
how Mr. This had refused fifteen hundred guineas for a horse which 
he bought for a hundred ; how Bacchus was the best horse in Ireland; 
which horses were to run at Something races ; and how the Marquis 
of Waterford gave a plate or a purse. We drank " the Queen," with 
hip ! hip ! hurrah ! the " winner of the Kenmare stakes " — hurrah ! 
Presently the gentleman next me rose and made a speech : he had 
brought a mare down and won the stakes — a hundred and seventy 
guineas — and I looked at him with a great deal of respect. Other 
toasts ensued, and more talk about horses. Nor am I in the least 
disposed to sneer at gentlemen who like sporting and talk about it : 
for I do believe that the conversation of a dozen fox-hunters is just 
as clever as that of a similar number of merchants, barristers, or 
literary men. But to this trade, as to all others, a man must be bred ; 
if he has not learnt it thoroughly or in early life, he will not readily 
become a proficient afterwards, and when therefore the subject is 
broached, had best maintain a profound silence. 

A young Edinburgh cockney, with an easy self-confidence that 
the reader may have perhaps remarked in others of his calling and 
nation, and who evidently knew as much of sporting matters as the 
individual who writes this, proceeded nevertheless to give the com- 
pany his opinions, and greatly astonished them all ; for these simple 
people are at first willing to believe that a stranger is sure to be a 
knowing fellow, and did not seem inclined to be undeceived even by 
this little pert, grinning Scotchman. It was good to hear him talk of 
Haddington, Musselburgh — and heaven knows what strange out- 
landish places, as if they were known to all the world. And here 
would be a good opportunity to enter into a dissertation upon 
natural characteristics : to show that the bold, swaggering Irishman is 
really a modest fellow, while the canny Scot is a most brazen one ; to 
wonder why the inhabitant of one country is ashamed of it — which is 
in itself so fertile and beautiful, and has produced more than its fair 
proportion of men of genius, valour, and wit ; whereas it never enters 
into the head of a Scotchman to question his own equality (and 



AN EDINBURGH COCKNEY. 107 

something more) at all: but that such discussions are quite unpro- 
fitable ; nay, that exactly the contrary propositions may be argued to 
just as much length. Has the reader ever tried with a dozen of 
De Tocqueville's short crisp philosophic apophthegms and taken the 
converse of them ? The one or other set of propositions will answer 
equally well ; and it is the best way to avoid all such. Let the above 
passage, then, simply be understood to say, that on a certain day the 
writer met a vulgar little Scotchman — not that all Scotchmen are 
vulgar ; — that this little pert creature prattled about his country as if 
he and it were ornaments to the world — which the latter is, no doubt ; 
and that one could not but contrast his behaviour with that of great 
big stalwart simple Irishmen, who asked your opinion of their country 
with as much modesty as if you — because an Englishman — must be 
somebody, and they the dust of the earth. 

Indeed, this want of self-confidence at times becomes quite painful 
to the stranger. If in reply to their queries, you say you like the 
country, people seem really quite delighted. Why should they ? Why 
should a stranger's opinion who doesn't know the country be more 
valued than a native's who does ? — Suppose an Irishman in England 
were to speak in praise or abuse of the country, would one be particu- 
larly pleased or annoyed ? One would be glad that the man liked his 
trip ; but as for his good or bad opinion of the country, the country 
stands on its own bottom, superior to any opinion of any man or men. 

I must beg pardon of the little Scotchman for reverting to him 
(let it be remembered that there were two Scotchmen at Killarney, 
and that I speak of the other one) ; but I have seen no specimen of 
that sort of manners in any Irishman since I have been in the 
country. I have met more gentlemen here than in any place I ever 
saw : gentlemen of high and low ranks, that is to say : men shrewd and 
delicate of perception, observant of society, entering into the feelings 
of others, and anxious to set them at ease or to gratify them ; of 
course exaggerating their professions of kindness, and in so far 
insincere ; but the very exaggeration seems to be a proof of a kindly 
nature, and I wish in England we were a little more complimentary. 
In Dublin, a lawyer left his chambers, and a literary man his books, 
to walk the town with me — the town, which they must know a great 
deal too well : for, pretty as it is, it is but a small place after all, not 
like that great bustling, changing, struggling world, the Englishman's 
capital. Would a London man leave his business to trudge to the 



10S THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

Tower or the Park with a stranger ? We would ask him to dine at 
the club, or to eat whitebait at Lovegrove's, and think our duty done, 
neither caring for him, nor professing to care for him ; and we pride our- 
selves on our honesty accordingly. Never was honesty more selfish. 
And so a vulgar man in England disdains to flatter his equals, and 
chiefly displays his character of snob by assuming as much as he can 
for himself, swaggering and showing off in his coarse, dull, stupid way. 

" I am a gentleman, and pay my way," as the old fellow said at 
Glengariff. I have not heard a sentence near so vulgar from any 
man in Ireland. Yes, by the way, there was another Englishman at 
Cork : a man in a middling, not to say humble, situation of life. 
When introduced to an Irish gentleman, his formula seemed to be, 
" I think, sir, I have met you somewhere before." " I am sure, sir, 
I have met you before," he said, for the second time in my hearing, to 
a gentleman of great note in Ireland. " Yes, I have met you at Lord 

X 's." " I don't know my Lord X ," replied the Irishman. 

"Sir," says the other, " I shall have great pleasure in introducing you 
to him" Well, the good-natured simple Irishman thought this 
gentleman a very fine fellow. There was only one, of some dozen 
who spoke about him, that found out Snob. I suppose the Spaniards 
lorded it over the Mexicans in this way : their drummers passing for 
generals among the simple red men, their glass beads for jewels, and 
their insolent bearing for heroic superiority. 

Leaving, then, the race-ordinary (that little Scotchman with his airs 
has carried us the deuce knows how far out of the way), I came home 
just as the gentlemen of the race were beginning to "mix," that is, to 
forsake the wine for the punch. At the lodgings I found my five 
companions of the morning with a bottle of that wonderful whisky 
of which they spoke; and which they had agreed to exchange against 
a bundle of Liverpool cigars : so we discussed them, the whisky, 
and other topics in common. Now there is no need to violate the 
sanctity of private life, and report the conversation which took place, 
the songs which were sung, the speeches which were made, and the 
other remarkable events of the evening. Suffice it to say, that the 
English traveller gradually becomes accustomed to whisky-punch (in 
moderation of course), and finds the beverage very agreeable at 
Killarney ; against which I recollect a protest was entered at Dublin. 

But after we had talked of hunting, racing, regatting, and all 
other sports, I came to a discovery which astonished me, and for 



IRISH AND ENGLISH. 109 

which these honest, kind fellows are mentioned publicly here. The 
portraits, or a sort of resemblance of four of them, may be seen in 
the foregoing drawing of the car. The man with the straw-hat and 
handkerchief tied over it is the captain of an Indiaman ; three others, 
with each a pair of moustaches, sported yacht-costumes, jackets, 
club anchor-buttons, and so forth ; and, finally, one on the other side 
of the car (who cannot be seen on account of the portmanteaus, 
otherwise the likeness would be perfect,) was dressed with a coat and 
a hat in the ordinary way. One with the gold band and moustaches 
is a gentleman of property ; the other three are attorneys every man 
of them : two in large practice in Cork and Dublin, the other, and 
owner of the yacht, under articles to the attorney of Cork. Nov/ did 
any Englishman ever live with three attorneys for a whole day 
without hearing a single syllable of law spoken ? Did we ever see in 
our country attorneys with moustaches ; or, above all, an attorney's 
clerk the owner of a yacht of thirty tons ? He is a gentleman of 
property too — the heir, that is, to a good estate ; and has had a yacht 
of his own, he says, ever since he was fourteen years old. Is there 
any English boy of fourteen who commands a ship with a crew of 
five men under him ? We all agreed to have a boat for the stag- 
hunt on the lake next day ; and I went to bed wondering at this 
strange country more than ever. An attorney with moustaches ! 
What would they say of him in Chancery Lane ? 



no THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XI. 

KILLARNEY — STAG-HUNTING ON THE LAKE. 

Mrs. Macgillicuddy's house is at the corner of the two principal 
streets of Killarney town, and the drawing-room windows command 
each a street. Before one window is a dismal, rickety building, with 
a slated face, that looks like an ex-town-hall. There is a row of 
arches to the ground floor, the angles at the base of which seem to 
have mouldered or to have been kicked away. Over the Centre arch 
is a picture with a flourishing yellow inscription above, importing 
that it is the meeting-place of the Total Abstinence Society. Total 
abstinence is represented by the figures of a gentleman in a blue coat 
and drab tights, with gilt garters, who is giving his hand to a lady ; 
between them is an escutcheon surmounted with a cross and charged 
with religious emblems. Cupids float above the heads and between 
the legs of this happy pair, while an exceedingly small tea-table with 
the requisite crockery reposes against the lady's knee ; a still, with 
death's-head and bloody-bones, filling up the naked corner near the 
gentleman. A sort of market is held here, and the place is swarming 
with blue cloaks and groups of men talking ; here and there is a 
stall with coarse linens, crockery, a cheese ; and crowds of egg- and 
milk-women are squatted on the pavement, with their ragged cus- 
tomers or gossips ; and the yellow-haired girl, on the next page, with 
a barrel containing nothing at all, has been sitting, as if for her 
portrait, this hour past. 

Carts, cars, jingles, barouches, horses and vehicles of all descrip- 
tions rattle presently through the streets : for the town is crowded 
with company for the races and other sports, and all the world is 
bent to see the stag-hunt on the lake. Where the ladies of the Mac- 
gillicuddy family have slept, heaven knows, for their house is full of 
lodgers. What voices you hear ! " Bring me some hot wala/i," says 
a genteel, high-piped English voice. " Hwhere's me hot wather ? " 
roars a deep-toned Hibernian. See, over the way, three ladies in 
ringlets and green tabinet taking their " tay " preparatory to setting 



THE INN BY THE LAKE. 



in 



out. I wonder whether they heard the sentimental songs of the law- 
marines last night ? They must have been edified if they did. 







My companions came, true to their appointment, and we walked 
down to the boats, lying at a couple of miles from the town, near the 
" Victoria Inn," a handsome mansion, in pretty grounds, close to the 
lake, and owned by the patriotic Mr. Finn. A nobleman offered 
Finn eight hundred pounds for the use of his house during the races, 
and, to Finn's eternal honour be it said, he refused the money, and 
said he would keep his house for his friends and patrons, the public. 
Let the Cork Steam-Packet Company think of this generosity on the 



112 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

part of Mr. Finn, and blush for shame : at the Cork Agricultural Show 
they raised their fares, and were disappointed in their speculation, as 
they deserved to be, by indignant Englishmen refusing to go at all. 

The morning had been bright enough ; but for fear of accidents 
we took our mackintoshes, and at about a mile from the town found 
it necessary to assume those garments and wear them for the greater 
part of the day. Passing by the " Victoria," with its beautiful walks, 
park, and lodge, we came to a little creek where the boats were 
moored ; and there was the wonderful lake before us, with its moun- 
tains, and islands, and trees. Unluckily, however, the mountains 
happened to be invisible ; the islands looked like gray masses 
in the fog, and all that we could see for some time was the gray 
silhouette of the boat ahead of us, in which a passenger was engaged 
in a witty conversation with some boat still further in the mist. 



Drumming and trumpeting was heard at a little distance, and 
presently we found ourselves in the midst of a fleet of boats upon 
the rocky shores of the beautiful little Innisfallen. 

Here we landed for a while, and the weather clearing up allowed 
us to see this charming spot : rocks, shrubs, and little abrupt rises 
and falls of ground, covered with the brightest emerald grass ; a 
beautiful little ruin of a Saxon chapel, lying gentle, delicate, and 
plaintive on the shore ; some noble trees round about it, and beyond, 
presently, the tower of Ross Castle : island after island appearing in 
the clearing sunshine, and the huge hills throwing their misty veils 
off, and wearing their noble robes of purple. The boats' crews were 
grouped about the place, and one large barge especially had landed 
some sixty people, being the Temperance band, with its drums, 
trumpets, and wives. They were marshalled by a grave old gentle- 
man with a white waistcoat and queue, a silver medal decorating 



THE STAG-HUNT. 113 

one side of his coat, and a brass heart reposing on the other flap. 
The horns performed some Irish airs prettily ; and at length, at the 
instigation of a fellow who went swaggering about with a pair of 
whirling drumsticks, all formed together and played Garryowen — the 
active drum of course most dreadfully out of time. 

Having strolled about the island for a quarter of an hour, it 
became time to take to the boats again, and we were rowed over to 
the wood opposite Sullivan's cascade, where the hounds had been 
laid in in the morning, and the stag was expected to take water. 
Fifty or sixty men are employed on the mountain to drive the stag 
lakewards, should he be inclined to break away : and the sport 
generally ends by the stag — a wild one — making for the water with 
the pack swimming afterwards ; and here he is taken and disposed of : 
how I know not. It is rather a parade than a stag-hunt ; but, with all 
the boats around and the noble view, must be a fine thing to see. 

Presently, steering his barge, the " Erin," with twelve oars and a 
green flag sweeping the water, came by the president of the sports, 
Mr. John O'Connell, a gentleman who appears to be liked by rich 
and poor here, and by the latter especially is adored. " Sure we'd 
dhrown ourselves for him," one man told me ; and proceeded to speak 
eagerly in his praise, and to tell numberless acts of his generosity 
and justice. The justice is rather rude in this wild country some- 
times, and occasionally the judges not only deliver the sentence 
but execute it ; nor does any one think of appealing to any more 
regular jurisdiction. The likeness of Mr. O'Cormell to his brother is 
very striking : one might have declared it was the Liberator sitting at 
the stern of the boat. 

Some scores more boats were there, darting up and down in the 
pretty, busy waters. Here came a Cambridge boat ; and where, 
indeed, will not the gentlemen of that renowned university be found ? 
Yonder were the dandy dragoons, stiff, silent, slim, faultlessly 
appointed, solemnly puffing cigars. Every now and then a hound 
would be heard in the wood, whereon numbers of voices, right and 
left, would begin to yell in chorus — " Hurroo ! Hoop ! Yow — yow — 
yow! " in accents the most shrill or the most melancholious. Mean- 
while the sun had had enough of the sport, the mountains put on 
their veils again, the islands retreated into the mist, the word went 
through the fleet to spread all umbrellas, and ladies took shares of 
mackintoshes and disappeared under the flaps of silk cloaks. 

8 



114 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



The wood comes down to the very edge of the water, and many 
of the crews thought fit to land and seek this green shelter. There 
you might see how the dandium summd gains hcesit ulmo, clambering 
up thither to hide from the rain, and many " membra " in dabbled 
fussia-ducks cowering viridi sub arbuto ad aqua. Icnc caput. To 
behold these moist dandies the natives of the country came eagerly. 
Strange, savage faces might be seen peering from out of the trees : 
long-haired, barelegged girls came down the hill, some with green 
apples and very sickly-looking plums ; some with whisky and goat's- 
milk : a ragged boy had a pair of stag's horns to sell : the place 
swarmed with people. We went up the hill to see the noble cascade, 
and when you say that it comes rushing down over rock and through 



^sm^fi 




tangled woods, alas ! one has said all the dictionary can help you to, 
and not enough to distinguish this particular cataract from any other. 
This seen and admired, we came back to the harbour where the boats 
lay, and from which spot the reader might have seen the foregoing 
view of the lake — that is, you would see the lake, if the mist would 
only clear away. 

But this for hours it did not seem inclined to do. We rowed up 
and down industriously for a period of time which seemed to me 
atrociously long. The bugles of the " Erin " had long since sounded 
" Home, sweet home ! " and the greater part of the fleet had dispersed. 
As for the stag-hunt, all I saw of it was four dogs that appeared on 
the shore at different intervals, and a huntsman in a scarlet coat, 
who similarly came and went : once or twice we were gratified by 



THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY. 115 

hearing the hounds ; but at last it was agreed that there was no chance 
for the day, and we rowed off to Kenmare Cottage — where, on the 
lovely lawn, or in a cottage adjoining, the gentry picnic, and where, 
with a handkerchiefful of potatoes, we made as pleasant a meal as 
ever I recollect. Here a good number of the boats were assembled ; 
here you might see cloths spread and dinner going on ; here were 
those wonderful officers, looking as if they had just stepped from 
bandboxes, with — by heavens ! — not a shirt-collar disarranged nor a 
boot dimmed by the wet. An old piper was making a very feeble 
music, with a handkerchief spread over his face ; and, farther on, a 
little smiling German boy was playing an accordion and singing a 
ballad of Hauff 's. I had a silver medal in my pocket, with Victoria 
on one side and Britannia on the other, and gave it him, for the 
sake of old times and his round friendly face. Oh, little German 
boy, many a night as you trudge lonely through this wild land, 
must you yearn after Bruderlein and Schwesterlein at home — yonder 
in stately Frankfurt city that lies by silver Mayn. I thought of 
vineyards and sunshine, and the greasy clock in the theatre, and the 
railroad all the way to Wiesbaden, and the handsome Jew country- 
houses by the Bockenheimer-Thor . . . . " Come along," 
says the boatman. " All the gintlemin are waiting for your honour." 
And I found them finishing the potatoes, and we all had a draught 
of water from the lake, and so pulled to the Middle or Turk Lake 
through the picturesque green rapid that floats under Brickeen 
Bridge. 

What is to be said about Turk Lake ? When there, we agreed 
that it was more beautiful than the large lake, of which it is not one- 
fourth the size; then, when we came back, wfe said, " No, the large 
lake is the most beautiful." And so, at every point we stopped at, we 
determined that that particular spot was the prettiest in the whole 
lake. The fact is — and I don't care to own it — they are too hand- 
some. As for a man coming from his desk in London or Dublin 
and seeing " the whole lakes in a "day," he is an ass for his pains ; a 
child doing sums in addition might as well read the whole multiplica- 
tion-table, and fancy he had it by heart. We should look at these 
wonderful things leisurely and thoughtfully ; and even then, blessed 
is he who understands them. I wonder what impression the sight 
made upon the three tipsy Englishmen at Glengariff ? What idea of 
natural beauty belongs to an old fellow who says he is " a gentleman, 



ii6 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

and pays his way? " What to a jolly fox-hunter, who had rather see 
a good " screeching " run with the hounds than the best landscape 
ever painted ? And yet they all come hither, and go through the 
business regularly, and would not miss seeing every one of the lakes 
and going up every one of the hills. By which circumlocution the 
writer wishes ingenuously to announce that he will not see any more 
lakes, ascend any mountains or towers, visit any gaps of Duuloe, or 
any prospects whatever, except such as nature shall fling in his way 
in the course of a quiet reasonable walk. 

In the Middle Lake we were carried to an island where a cere- 
mony of goat's-milk and whisky is performed by some travellers, 
and where you are carefully conducted to a spot that " Sir Walter 
Scott admired more than all." Whether he did or not, we can only 
say on the authority of the boatman ; but the place itself was a quiet 
nook, where three waters meet, and indeed of no great picturesqueness 
when compared with the beauties around. But it is of a gentle, 
homely beauty — not like the lake, which is as a princess dressed out 
in diamonds and velvet for a drawing-room, and knowing herself to 
be faultless too. As for Innisfallen, it was just as if she gave one 
smiling peep into the nursery before she went away, so quiet, 
innocent, and tender is that lovely spot ; but, depend on it, if there 
is a lake fairy or princess, as Crofton Croker and other historians 
assert, she is of her nature a vain creature, proud of her person, and 
fond of the finest dresses to adorn it. May I confess that I would 
rather, for a continuance, have a house facing a paddock, with a cow 
in it, than be always looking at this immense, overpowering splendour. 
You would not, my dear brother cockney from Tooley Street ? No, 
those brilliant eyes of thine were never meant to gaze at anything 
less bright than the sun. Your mighty spirit finds nothing too vast 
for its comprehension, spurns what is humble as unworthy, and only, 
like Foote's bear, dances to "the genteelest of tunes." 

The long and short of the matter is, that on getting off the lake, 
after seven hours' rowing, I felt as much relieved as if I had been 
dining for the same length of time with her Majesty the Queen, and 
went jumping home as gaily as possible ; but those marine lawyers 
insisted so piteously upon seeing Ross Castle, close to which we were 
at length landed, that I was obliged (in spite of repeated oaths to the 
contrary) to ascend that tower, and take a bird's-eye view of the 
scene. Thank heaven, I have neither tail nor wings, and have not 



THE LAKES OF KILLARNEY. 117 

the slightest wish to be a bird : that continual immensity of prospect 
which stretches beneath those little wings of theirs must deaden their 
intellects, depend on it. Tomkins and I are not made for the 
immense : we can enjoy a little at a time, and enjoy that little very 
much ; or if like birds, we are like the ostrich — not that we have 
fine feathers to our backs, but because we cannot fly. Press us too 
much, and we become flurried, and run off and bury our heads in the 
quiet bosom of dear mother earth, and so get rid of the din, and th'e 
dazzle, and the shouting. 

Because we dined upon potatoes, that was no reason we should 
sup on buttermilk. Well, well ! salmon is good, and whisky is good 
too. 



n8 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XII. 

KILLARNEY — THE RACES — MUCKROSS. 

The races were as gay as races could be, in spite of one or two 
untoward accidents that arrived at the close of the day's sport. 
Where all the people came from that thronged out of the town was 
a wonder ; where all the vehicles, the cars, barouches and shandry- 
dans, the carts, the horse- and donkey-men could have found stable 
and shelter, who can tell ? Of all these equipages and donkeypages 
I had a fine view from Mrs. Macgillicuddy's window, and it was 
pleasant to see the happy faces shining under the blue cloaks as the 
carts rattled by. 

A very handsome young lady — I presume Miss MacG. — who 
gives a hand to the drawing-room and comes smiling in with the tea- 
pot — Miss MacG., I say, appeared to-day in a silk bonnet and stiff 
silk dress, with a brooch and a black mantle, as smart as any lady in 
the land, and looking as if she was accustomed to her dress too, 
which the housemaid on banks of Thames does not. Indeed, I 
have not met a more ladylike young person in Ireland than- Miss 
MacG. ; and when I saw her in a handsome car on the course, I 
was quite proud of a bow. 

Tramping thither, too, as hard as they could walk, and as happy 
and smiling as possible, were Mary the coachman's wife of the day 
before, and Johanna with the child, and presently the other young 
lady : the man with the stick, you may be sure : he would toil a year 
for that day's pleasure. They are all mad for it : people walk for miles 
and miles round to the race ; they come without a penny in their 
pockets often, trusting to chance and charity, and that some worthy 
gentleman may fling them a sixpence. A gentleman told me that he 
saw on the course persons from his part of the country, who must 
have walked eighty miles for the sport. 

For a mile and a half to the racecourse there could be no 
pleasanter occupation than looking at the happy multitudes who 
were thronging thither ; and I am bound to say that on rich or poor 



THE RACES. 119 

shoulders I never saw so many handsome faces in my life. In the 
carriages, among the ladies of Kerry, every second woman " was 
handsome ; and there is something peculiarly tender and pleasing in 
the looks of the young female peasantry that is perhaps even better 
than beauty. Beggars had taken their stations along the road in no 
great numbers, for I suspect they were most of them on the ground, 
and those who remained were consequently of the oldest and ugliest. 
It is a shame that such horrible figures are allowed to appear in 
public as some of the loathsome ones which belong to these unhappy 
people. On went the crowd, however, laughing and as gay as possible ; 
all sorts of fun passing from car- to foot-passengers as the pretty girls 
came clattering by, and the " boys" had a word for each. One lady, 
with long flowing auburn hair, who was turning away her head from 
some "boys" very demurely, I actually saw, at a pause of the cart, kissed 
by one of them. She gave the fellow a huge box on the ear and he 
roared out, "O murther !" and she frowned for some time as hard as 
she could, whilst the ladies in the blue cloaks at the back of the car 
uttered a shrill rebuke in Irish. But in a minute the whole party was 
grinning, and the young fellow who had administered the salute may, 
for what I know, have taken another without the slap on the face by 
way of exchange. 

And here, lest the fair public may have a bad opinion of the 
personage who talks of kissing with such awful levity, let it be said 
that with all this laughing, romping, kissing, and the like, there are 
no more innocent girls in the world than the Irish girls; and that the 
women of our squeamish country are far more liable to err. One has 
but to walk through an English and Irish town, and see how much 
superior is the morality of the latter. That great terror-striker, the 
Confessional, is before the Irish girl, and sooner or later her sins 
must be told there. 

By this time we are got upon the course, which is really one of 
the most beautiful spots that ever was seen : the lake and mountains 
lying along two sides of it, and of course visible from all. They 
were busy putting up the hurdles when we arrived : stiff bars and 
poles, four feet from the ground, with furze-bushes over them. The 
grand stand was already full ; along the hedges sat thousands of the 
people, sitting at their ease doing nothing, and happy as kings. A 
daguerreotype would have been of great service to have taken their 
portraits, and I never saw a vast multitude of heads and attitudes so 



120 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

picturesque and lively. The sun lighted up the whole course and the 
lakes with amazing brightness, though behind the former lay a huge 
rack of the darkest clouds, against which the corn-fields and meadows 
shone in the brightest green and gold, and a row of white tents was 
quite dazzling. 

There was a brightness and intelligence about this immense Irish 
crowd, which I don't remember to have seen in an English one. 
The women in their blue cloaks, with red smiling faces peering from 
one end, and bare feet from the other, had seated themselves in all 
sorts of pretty attitudes of cheerful contemplation ; and the men, 
who are accustomed to lie about, were doing so now with all their 
might — sprawling on the banks, with as much ease and variety as 
club-room loungers on their soft cushions, — or squatted leisurely 
among the green potatoes. The sight of so much happy laziness 
did one good to look on. Nor did the honest fellows seem to weary 
of this amusement. Hours passed on, and the gentlefolks (judging 
from our party) began to grow somewhat weary; but the finest 
peasantry in Europe never budged from their posts, and continued to 
indulge in greetings, indolence, and conversation. 

When we came to the row of white tents, as usual it did not look 
so brilliant or imposing as it appeared from a little distance, though 
the scene around them was animating enough. The tents were 
long humble booths stretched on hoops, each with its humble 
streamer or ensign without, and containing, of course, articles of 
refreshment within. But Father Mathew has been busy among the 
publicans, and the consequence is that the poor fellows are now 
condemned for the most part to sell " tay " in place of whisky ; for 
the concoction of which beverage huge cauldrons were smoking, in 
front of each hut-door, in round graves dug for the purpose and piled 
up with black smoking sod. 

Behind this camp were the carts of the poor people, which were 
not allowed to penetrate into the quarter where the quality cars 
stood. And a little way from the huts, again, you might see (for you 
could scarcely hear) certain pipers executing their melodies and 
inviting people to dance. 

Anything more lugubrious than the drone of the pipe, or the jig 
danced to it, or the countenances of the dancers and musicians, I 
never saw. Round each set of dancers the people formed a ring, 
in the which the figurantes and coryphe'es went through their opera- 



THE RACES. 121 

tions. The toes went in and the toes went out; then there came 
certain mystic figures of hands across, and so forth. I never saw 
less grace or seemingly less enjoyment — no, not even in a quadrille. 
The people, however, took a great interest, and it was " Well done, 
Tim ! " " Step out, Miss Brady ! " and so forth during the dance. 

Thimble-rig too obtained somewhat, though in a humble way. A 
ragged scoundrel — the image of Hogarth's Bad Apprentice — went 
bustling and shouting through the crowd with his dirty tray and 
thimble, and as soon as he had taken his post, stated that this was 
the " royal game of thimble " and called upon " gintlemin " to come 
forward. And then a ragged fellow would be seen to approach, with 
as innocent an air as he could assume, and the bystanders might 
remark that the second ragged fellow almost always won. Nay, he 
was so benevolent, in many instances, as to point out to various 
people who had a mind to bet, under which thimble the pea actually 
was. Meanwhile, the first fellow was sure to be looking away and 
talking to some one in the crowd ; but somehow it generally 
happened — and how of course I can't tell — that any man who listened 
to the advice of rascal No. 2, lost his money. I believe it is so 
even in England. 

Then you would see gentlemen with halfpenny roulette-tables ; 
and, again, here were a pair (indeed they are very good portraits) who 




122 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

came forward disinterestedly with a table and a pack of cards, and 
began playing against each other for ten shillings a game, betting 
crowns as freely as possible. 

Gambling, however, must have been fatal to both of these 
gentlemen, else might not one have supposed that, if they were 
in the habit of winning much, they would have treated themselves to 
better clothes ? This, however, is the way with all gamblers, as the 
reader has no doubt remarked : for, look at a game of loo or 
vingt-et-un played in a friendly way, and where you, and three or 
four others, have certainly lost three or four pounds, — well, ask at the 
end of the game who has won, and you invariably find that nobody 
has. Hopkins has only covered himself; Snooks has neither lost 
nor won ; Smith has won four shillings ; and so on. Who gets the 
money ? The devil gets it, I dare say ; and so, no doubt, he has 
laid hold of the money of yonder gentleman in the handsome 
great-coat. 

But, to the shame of the stewards be it spoken, they are extremely 
averse to this kind of sport ; and presently comes up one, a stout 
old gentleman on a bay horse, wielding a huge hunting-whip, at the 
sight of which all fly, amateurs, idlers, professional men, and all. He 
is a rude customer to deal with, that gentleman with the whip : just 
now he was clearing the course, and cleared it with such a vengeance, 
that a whole troop on a hedge retreated backwards into a ditch 
opposite, where was rare kicking, and sprawling, and disarrangement 
of petticoats, and cries of " O murther ! " " Mother of God ! " 
" I'm kilt ! " and so on. But as soon as the horsewhip was gone, 
the people clambered out of their ditch again, and were as thick as 
ever on the bank. 

The last instance of the exercise of the whip shall be this. A 
groom rode insolently after- a gentleman, calling him names, and 
inviting him to fight. This the great flagellator hearing, rode up to 
the groom, lifted him gracefully off his horse into the air, and on to 
the ground, and when there administered to him a severe and merited 
fustigation ; after which he told the course-keepers to drive the 
fellow off the course, and enjoined the latter not to appear again at 
his peril. 

As for the races themselves, I won't pretend to say that they were 
better or worse than other such amusements ; or to quarrel with 
gentlemen who choose to risk their lives in manly exercise. In the 



THE END OF A RACE. 123 

first race there was a fall : one of the gentlemen was carried off the 
ground, and it was said he was dead. In the second race, a horse 
and man went over and over each other, and the fine young man 
(we had seen him five minutes before, full of life and triumph, clear- 
ing the hurdles on his grey horse, at the head of the race) : — in the 
second heat of the second race the poor fellow missed his leap, was 
carried away stunned and dying, and the bay horse won. 

I was standing, during the first heat of this race, (this is the 
second man the grey has killed — they ought to call him the Pale 
Horse,) by half-a-dozen young girls from the gentleman's village, and 
hundreds more of them were there, anxious for the honour of their 
village, the young squire, and the grey horse. Oh, how they hurrah'd 
as he rode ahead ! I saw these girls — they might be fourteen years 
old — after the catastrophe. "Well," says I, "this is a sad end to 
the race." " A?id is it the pink jacket or the blue has won this time? " 

says one of the girls. It was poor Mr. C 's only epitaph : and 

wasn't it a sporting answer ? That girl ought to be a hurdle-racer's 
wife ; and I would like, for my part, to bestow her upon the groom 
who won the race. 

I don't care to confess that the accident to the poor young 
gentleman so thoroughly disgusted my feeling as a man and a 
cockney, that I turned off the racecourse short, and hired a horse 
for sixpence to carry me back to Miss Macgillicuddy. In the 
evening, at the inn, (let no man who values comfort go to an Irish 
inn in race-time,) a blind old piper, with silvery hair and of a most 
respectable, bard-like appearance, played a great deal too much for 
us after dinner. He played very well, and with very much feeling, 
ornamenting the airs with flourishes and variations that were very 
pretty indeed, and his pipe was by far the most melodious I have 
heard ; but honest truth compels me to say, that the bad pipes are 
execrable, and the good inferior to a clarionet. 

Next day, instead of going back to the racecourse, a car drove 
me out to Muckross, where, in Mr. Herbert's beautiful grounds, lies 
the prettiest little bijou of a ruined abbey ever seen — a little chapel 
with a little chancel, a little cloister, a little dormitory, and in the 
midst of the cloister a wonderful huge yew-tree which darkens the 
whole place. The abbey is famous in book and legend ; nor could 
two young lovers, or artists in search of the picturesque, or picnic- 
parties with the cold chicken and champagne in the distance, find a 



124 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

more charming place to while away a sunmier's day than in the park 
of Mr. Herbert. But depend on it, for show-places and the due 
enjoyment of scenery, that distance of cold chickens and champagne 
is the most pleasing perspective one can have. I would have sacri- 
ficed a mountain or two for the above, and would have pitched 
Mangerton into the lake for the sake of a friend with whom to enjoy 
the rest of the landscape. 

The walk through Mr. Herbert's demesne carries you, through 
all sorts of beautiful avenues, by a fine house which he is building 
in the Elizabethan style, and from which, as from the whole road, 
you command the most wonderful rich views of the lake. The shore 
breaks into little bays, which the water washes ; here and there are 
picturesque gray rocks to meet it, the bright grass as often, or the 
shrubs of every kind which bathe their roots in the lake. It was 
August, and the men before Turk Cottage were cutting a second crop 
of clover, as fine, seemingly, as a first crop elsewhere : a short walk 
from it brought us to a neat lodge, whence issued a keeper with a 
key, quite willing, for the consideration of sixpence, to conduct us to 
Turk waterfall. 

Evergreens and other trees, in their brightest livery; blue sky; 
roaring water, here black, and yonder foaming of a dazzling white ; 
rocks shining in the dark places, or frowning black against the light, 
all the leaves and branches keeping up a perpetual waving and 
dancing round about the cascade : what is the use of putting down 
all this ? A man might describe the cataract of the Serpentine in 
exactly the same terms, and the reader be no wiser. Suffice it to say, 
that the Turk cascade is even handsomer than the before-mentioned 
waterfall of O'Sullivan, and that a man may pass half an hour there, 
and look, and listen, and muse, and not even feel the want of a com- 
panion, or so much as think of the iced champagne. There is just 
enough of savageness in the Turk cascade to make the view piquante. 
It is not, at this season at least, by any means fierce, only wild ; nor 
was the scene peopled by any of the rude, red-shanked figures that 
clustered about the trees of O'Sullivan's waterfall, — savages won't pay 
sixpence for the prettiest waterfall ever seen — so that this only was for 
the best of company. 

The road hence to Killarney carries one through Muckross village, 
a pretty cluster of houses, where the sketcher will find abundant 
materials for exercising his art and puzzling his hand. There are not 



MUCKROSS. i ?5 

only noble trees, but a green common and an old water-gate to a 
river, lined on either side by beds of rushes and discharging itself 
beneath an old mill-wheel. But the old mill-wheel was perfectly idle, 
like most men and mill-wheels in this country : by it is a ruinous 
house, and a fine garden of stinging-nettles ; opposite it, on the 
common, is another ruinous house, with another garden containing 
the same plant ; and far away are sharp ridges of purple hills, which 
make as pretty a landscape as the eye can see. I don't know how it 
is, but throughout the country the men and the landscapes seem 
to be the same, and one and the other seem ragged, ruined, and 
cheerful. 

Having been employed all day (making some abominable attempts 
at landscape-drawing, which shall not be exhibited here), it became 
requisite, as the evening approached, to recruit an exhausted cockney 
stomach — which, after a very moderate portion of exercise, begins to 
sigh for beef-steaks in the most peremptory manner. Hard by is a 
fine hotel with a fine sign stretching along the road for the space of a 
dozen windows at least, and looking inviting enough. All the doors 
were open, and I walked into a great number of rooms, but the only 
person I saw was a woman with trinkets of arbutus, who offered me, 
by way of refreshment, a walking-stick or a card-rack. I suppose 
everybody was at the races ; and an evilly-disposed person might 
have laid mai?i-basse upon the great-coats which were there, and the 
silver-spoons, if by any miracle such things were kept — but Britannia- 
metal is the favourite composition in Ireland; or else iron by itself; 
or else iron that has been silvered over, but that takes good care to 
peep out at all the corners of the forks : and blessed is the traveller 
who has not other observations to make regarding his fork, besides 
the mere abrasion of the silver. 

This was the last day's race, and on the next morning (Sunday), 
all the thousands who had crowded to the race seemed trooping to 
the chapels, and the streets were blue with cloaks. Walking in to 
prayers, and without his board, came my young friend of the thimble- 
rig, and presently after sauntered in the fellow with the long coat, 
who had played at cards for sovereigns. I should like to hear the 
confession of himself and friend the next time they communicate 
with his reverence. 

The extent of this town is very curious, and I should imagine its 
population to be much greater than five thousand, which was the 



126 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



number, according to Miss Macgillicuddy. Along the three main 
streets are numerous arches, down every one of which runs an alley, 
intersected by other alleys, and swarming with people. A stream or 
gutter runs commonly down these alleys, in which the pigs and 
children are seen paddling about. The men and women loll at their 
doors or windows, to enjoy the detestable prospect. I saw two pigs 
under a fresh-made deal staircase in one of the main streets near the 
Bridewell : two very well-dressed girls, with their hair in ringlets, 
were looking out of the parlour-window : almost all the glass in the 
upper rooms was of course smashed, the windows patched here 
and there (if the people were careful), the wood-work of the door 
loose, the whitewash peeling off, — and the house evidently not two 
years old. 

By the Bridewell is a busy porato-market, picturesque to the 
sketcher, if not very respectable to the merchant : here were the 
country carts and the country cloaks, and the shrill beggarly bargains 
going on — a world of shrieking and gesticulating, and talk, about a 
pennyworth of potatoes. 




All round the town miserable streets of cabins are stretched. You 
see people lolling at each door, women staring and combing their 
hair, men with their little pipes, children whose rags hang on by a 
miracle, idling in a gutter. Are we to set- all this down to absen- 
teeism, and pity poor injured Ireland? Is the landlord's absence the 



NEEDFUL REFORMS. 127 

reason why the house is filthy, and Biddy lolls in the porch all day ? 
Upon my word, I have heard people talk as if, when Pat's thatch 
was blown oft", the landlord ought to go fetch the straw and the ladder, 
and mend it himself. People need not be dirty if they are ever so 
idle ; if they are ever so poor, pigs and men need not live together. 
Half-an-hour's work, and digging a trench, might remove that filthy 
dunghill from that filthy window. The smoke might as well come 
out of the chimney as out of the door. Why should not Tim do that, 
instead of walking a hundred-and-sixty miles to a race ? The priests 
might do much more to effect these reforms than even the landlords 
themselves : and I hope now that the excellent Father Mathew has 
succeeded in arraying his clergy to work with him in the abolition of 
drunkenness, they will attack the monster Dirt, with the same good- 
will, and surely with the same success. 



i2o THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XIIL 

TRALEE — LISTOWEL — TARBERT. 

I made the journey to Tralee next day, upon one of the famous Bian- 
coni cars — very comfortable conveyances too, if the booking-officers 
would only receive as many persons as the car would hold, and not 
have too many on the seats. For half-an-hour before the car left 
Killarney, I observed people had taken their seats : and, let all 
travellers be cautious to do likewise, lest, although they have booked 
their places, they be requested to mount on the roof, and accommodate 
themselves on a band-box, or a pleasant deal trunk with a knotted rope, 
to prevent it from being slippery, while the corner of another box jolts 
against your ribs for the journey. I had put my coat on a place, and 
was stepping to it, when a lovely lady with great activity jumped up and 
pushed the coat on the roof, and not only occupied my seat, but in- 
sisted that her husband should have the next one to her. So there was 
nothing for it but to make a huge shouting with the book-keeper and 
call instantly for the taking down of my luggage, and vow my great gods 
that I would take a postchaise and make the office pay : on which, 
I am ashamed to say, some other person was made to give up a 
decently comfortable seat on the roof, which I occupied, the former 
occupant hanging on — heaven knows where or how. 

A company of young squires were on the coach, and they talked 
of horse-racing and hunting punctually for three hours, during which 
time I do believe they did not utter one single word upon any other 
subject. What a wonderful faculty it is ! The writers of Natural 
Histories, in describing the noble horse, should say he is made not 
only to run, to carry burdens, &c, but to be talked about. What 
would hundreds of thousands of dashing young fellows do with their 
tongues, if they had not this blessed subject to discourse on? 

As far as the country went, there was here, to be sure, not much 
to be said. You pass through a sad-looking, bare, undulating country, 
with few trees, and poor stone-hedges, and poorer crops ; nor have I 
yet taken in Ireland so dull a ride. About half way between Tralee 
and Killarney is a wretched town, where horses are changed, and 



THE CHAPEL. 129 

where I saw more hideous beggary than anywhere else, I think. And 
I was, glad to get over this gloomy tract of country, and enter the 
capital of Kerry. 

It has a handsome description in the guide-books; but, if I mistake 
not, the English traveller will find a stay of a couple of hours in the 
town quite sufficient to gratify his curiosity with respect to the place. 
There seems to be a great deal of poor business going on ; the town 
thronged with people as usual ; the shops large and not too splendid. 
There are two or three rows of respectable houses, and a mall, and 
the townspeople have the further privilege of walking in the neigh- 
bouring grounds of a handsome park, which the proprietor has liber- 
ally given to their use. Tralee has a newspaper, and boasts of a 
couple of clubs : the one I saw was a big white house, no windows 
broken, and looking comfortable. But the most curious sight of the 
town was the chapel, with the festival held there. It was the feast of 
the Assumption of the Virgin, (let those who are acquainted with the 
calendar and the facts it commemorates say what the feast was, and 
when it falls,) and all the country seemed to be present on the occa- 
sion : the chapel and the large court leading to it were thronged 
with worshippers, such as one never sees in our country, where devo- 
tion is by no means so crowded as here. Here, in the court-yard, 
there were thousands of them on their knees, rosary in hand, for the 
most part praying, and mumbling, and casting a wistful look round as 
the strangers passed. In a corner was an old man groaning in the 
agonies of death or colic, and a woman got off her knees to ask us 
for charity for the unhappy old fellow. In the chapel the crowd was 
enormous : the priest and his people were kneeling, and bowing, and 
humming, and chanting, and censor-rattling ; the ghostly crew being 
attended by a fellow that I don't remember to have seen in conti- 
nental churches, a sort of Catholic clerk, a black shadow to the 
parson, bowing his head when his reverence bowed, kneeling when he 
knelt, only three steps lower. 

But we who wonder at copes and candlesticks, see nothing strange 
in surplices and beadles. A Turk, doubtless, would sneer equally at 
each, and have you to understand that the only reasonable ceremonial 
was that which took place at his mosque. 

Whether right or wrong in point of ceremony, it was evident the 
heart of devotion was there : the immense dense crowd moaned and 
swayed, and you heard a hum of all sorts of wild ejaculations, each 

9 



i 3 o THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

man praying seemingly for himself, while the service went on at the 
altar. The altar candles flickered red in the dark, steaming place, 
and every now and then from the choir you heard a sweet female 
voice chanting Mozart's music, which swept over the heads of the 
people a great deal more pure and delicious than the best incense 
that ever smoked out of pot. 

On the chapel-floor, just at the entry, lay several people moaning, 
and tossing, and telling their beads. Behind the old woman was a 




font of holy water, up to which little children were clambering ; and 
in the chapel-yard were several old women, with tin cans full of the 



LIS TOWEL. 131 

same sacred fluid, with which the people, as they entered, aspersed 
themselves with all their might, flicking a great quantity into their 
faces, and making a curtsey and a prayer at the same time. " A 
pretty prayer, truly ! " says the parson's wife. " What sad, sad," 
benighted superstition ! " says the Independent minister's lady. Ah •' 
ladies, great as your intelligence is, yet think, when compared with 
the Supreme One, what a little difference there is after all between 
your husbands' very best extempore oration and the poor Popish 
creatures' ! One is just as far off Infinite Wisdom as the other : and 
so let us read the story of the woman and her pot of ointment, that 
most noble and charming of histories ; which equalizes the great and 
the small, the wise and the poor in spirit, and shows that their merit 
before heaven lies in doing their best. 

When I came out of the chapel, the old fellow on the point of death 
was still howling and groaning in so vehement a manner, that I heartily 
trust he was an impostor, and that on receiving a sixpence he went 
home tolerably comfortable, having secured a maintenance for that day. 
But it will be long before I can forget the strange, wild scene, so 
entirely different was it from the decent and comfortable observances 
of our own church. 

Three cars set off together from Tralee to Tarbert : three cars full 
to overflowing. The vehicle before us contained nineteen persons, 
half-a-dozen being placed in the receptacle called the well, and one 
clinging on as if by a miracle at the bar behind. What can people 
want at Tarbert ? I wondered ; or anywhere else, indeed, that they rush 
about from one town to* another in this inconceivable way ? All the 
cars in all the towns seem to be thronged : people are perpetually 
hurrying from one dismal tumble-down town to another ; and yet no 
business is done anywhere that I can see. The chief part of the 
contents of our three cars was discharged at Listowel, to which, for 
the greater part of the journey, the road was neither more cheerful 
nor picturesque than that from Killarney to Tralee. As, however, 
you reach Listowel, the country becomes better cultivated, the gen- 
tlemen's seats are more frequent, and the town itself, as seen from a 
little distance, lies very prettily on a river, which is crossed by a 
handsome bridge, which leads to a neat-looking square, which con- 
tains a smartish church, which is flanked by a big Roman Catholic 
chapel, &c. An old castle, gray and ivy-covered, stands hard by. 
It was one of the strongholds of the Lords of Kerry, whose burying- 



132 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

place (according to the information of the coachman) is seen at about 
a league from the town. 

But pretty as Listowel is from a distance, it has, on a more inti- 
•mate acquaintance, by no means the prosperous appearance which a 
first glance gives it. The place seemed like a scene at a country 
theatre, once smartly painted by the artist ; but the paint has cracked 
in many places, the lines are worn away, and the whole piece only 
looks more shabby for the flaunting strokes of the brush which remain. 
And here, of course, came the usual crowd of idlers round the car : 
the epileptic idiot holding piteously out his empty tin snuff-box ; the 
brutal idiot, in an old soldier's coat, proffering his money-box and 
grinning and clattering the single halfpenny it contained ; the old 
man with no eyelids, calling upon you in the name of the Lord ; the 
woman with a child at her hideous, wrinkled breast ; the children 
without number. As for trade, there seemed to be none : a great 
Jeremy-Diddler kind of hotel stood hard by, swaggering and out-at- 
elbows, and six pretty girls were smiling out of a beggarly straw- 
bonnet shop, dressed as smartly as any gentleman's daughters of 
good estate. It was good, among the crowd of bustling, shrieking 
fellows, who were " jawing " vastly and doing nothing, to see how an 
English bagman, with scarce any words, laid hold of an ostler, carried 
him off vi ct armis in the midst of a speech, in which the latter was 
going to explain his immense activity and desire to serve, pushed him 
into a stable, from which he issued in a twinkling, leading the ostler 
and a horse, and had his bag on the car and his horse off in about 
two minutes of time, while the natives were still shouting round about 
other passengers' portmanteaus. 

Some time afterwards, away we rattled on our own journey to 
Tarbert, having a postilion on the leader, and receiving, I must say, 
some graceful bows from the young bonnet-makeresses. But of all 
the roads over which human bones were ever jolted, the first part of 
this from Listowel to Tarbert deserves the palm. It shook us all 
into headaches ; it shook some nails out of the side of a box I had ; 
it shook all the cords loose in a twinkling, and sent the baggage 
bumping about the passengers' shoulders. The coachman at the call 
of another English bagman, who was a fellow-traveller, — the postilion 
at the call of the coachman, descended to re-cord the baggage. The 
English bagman had the whole mass of trunks and bags stoutly corded 
and firmly fixed in a few seconds ; the coachman helped him as far 



LISTOWEL TO TARBERT. 133 

as his means allowed ; the postilion stood by with his hands in his 
pockets, smoking his pipe, and never offering to stir a finger. I said 
to him that I was delighted to see in a youth of sixteen that extreme 
activity and willingness to oblige, and that I would give him a hand- 
some remuneration for his services at the end of the journey : the 
young rascal grinned with all his might, understanding the satiric 
nature of the address perfectly well ; but he did not take his hands 
out of his pockets for all that, until it was time to get on his horse 
again, and then, having carried us over the most difficult part of 
the journey, removed his horse and pipe, and rode away with a 
parting grin. 

The cabins along the road were not much better than those to be 
seen south of Tralee, but the people were far better clothed, and 
indulged in several places in the luxury of pigsties. Near the 
prettily situated village of Ballylongford, we came in sight of the' 
Shannon mouth ; and a huge red round moon, that shone behind an 
old convent on the banks of the bright river, with dull green meadows 
between it and us, and white purple flats beyond, would be a good 
subject for the pencil of any artist whose wrist had not been put out 
of joint by the previous ten miles' journey. 

The town of Tarbert, in the guide-books and topographical 
dictionaries, flourishes considerably. You read of its port, its corn 
and provision stores, &c, and of certain good hotels ; for which as 
travellers we were looking with a laudable anxiety. The town, in 
fact, contains about a dozen of houses, some hundreds of cabins, and 
two hotels ; to one of which we were driven, and a kind landlady, 
conducting her half-dozen guests into a snug parlour, was for our 
ordering refreshment immediately, — which I certainly should have 
done, but for the ominous whisper of a fellow in the crowd as we 
descended (of course a disinterested patron of the other house), 
who hissed into my ears, "Ask to see the beds:" which proposal, 
accordingly, I made before coming to any determination regard- 
ing supper. 

The worthy landlady eluded my question several times with great 
skill and good-humour, but it became at length necessary to answer it ; 
which she did by putting on as confident an air as possible, and lead- 
ing the way upstairs to a bed-room, where there was a good large 
comfortable bed certainly. 

The only objection to the bed, however, was that it contained a 



134 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

sick lady, whom the hostess proposed to eject without any ceremony, 
saying that she was a great deal better, and going to get up that very 
evening. However, none of us had the heart to tyrannize over lovely 
woman in so painful a situation, and the hostess had the grief of 
seeing four out of her five guests repair across the way to " Bral- 
laghan's" or "Gallagher's Hotel," — the name has fled from my 
memory, but it is the big hotel in the place ; and unless the sick lady 
has quitted the other inn, which most likely she has done by this 
time, the English traveller will profit by this advice, and on arrival at 
Tarbert will have himself transported to " Gallagher's " at once. 

The next morning a car carried us to Tarbert Point, where there 
is a pier not yet completed, and a Preventive station, and where the 
Shannon steamers touch, that ply between Kilrush and Limerick. 
Here lay the famous river before us, with low banks and rich pastures 
on either side. 



( 135 ) 



CHAPTER XIV. 

LIMERICK. 

A capital steamer, which on this day was thronged with people, 
carried us for about four hours down the noble stream and landed 
us at Limerick quay. The character of the landscape on either side 
the stream is not particularly picturesque, but large, liberal, and 
prosperous. Gentle sweeps of rich meadows and corn-fields cover 
the banks, and some, though not too many, gentlemen's parks and 
plantations rise here and there. But the landscape was somehow 
more pleasing than if it had been merely picturesque; and, especially 
after coming out of that desolate county of Kerry, it was pleasant for 
the eye to rest upon this peaceful, rich, and generous scene. The 
first aspect of Limerick is very smart and pleasing : fine neat quays 
with considerable liveliness and bustle, a very handsome bridge (the 
Wellesley Bridge) before the spectator ; who, after a walk through two 
long and flourishing streets, stops at length at one of the best inns in 
Ireland — the large, neat, and prosperous one kept by Mr. Cruise. 
Except at Youghal, and the poor fellow whom the Englishman 
belaboured at Glengariff, Mr. Cruise is the only landlord of an inn I 
have had the honour to see in Ireland. I believe these gentlemen 
commonly (and very naturally) prefer riding with the hounds, or 
manly sports, to attendance on their guests ; and the landladies, if 
they prefer to play the piano, or to have a game of cards in the 
parlour, only show a taste at which no one can wonder : for who can 
expect a lady to be troubling herself with vulgar chance-customers, 
or looking after Molly in the bed-room or waiter Tim in the cellar ? 

Now, beyond this piece of information regarding the excellence 
of Mr. Cruise's hotel, which every traveller knows, the writer of this 
doubts very much whether he has anything to say about Limerick 
that is worth the trouble of saying or reading. I can't attempt to 
describe the Shannon, only to say that on board the steamboat there 
was a piper and a bugler, a hundred of genteel persons coming back 
from donkey-riding and bathing at Kilkee, a couple of heaps of raw 
hides that smelt very foully, a score of women nursing children, and 



136 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

a lobster-vendor, who vowed to me on his honour that he gave eight- 
pence a-piece for his fish, and that he had boiled them only the day 
before ; but when I produced the Guide-book, and solemnly told him 
to swear upon that to the truth of his statement, the lobster-seller 
turned away quite abashed, and would not be brought to support his 
previous assertion at all. Well, this is no description of the Shannon, 
as you have no need to be told, and other travelling cockneys will 
no doubt meet neither piper nor lobster-seller, nor raw hides ; nor, if 
they come to the inn where this is written, is it probable that they 
will hear, as I do this present moment, two fellows with red whiskers, 
and immense pomp and noise and blustering with the waiter, con- 
clude by ordering a pint of ale between them. All that one can 
hope to do is, to give a sort of notion of the movement and manners 
of the people ; pretending by no means to offer a description of 
places, but simply an account of what one sees in them. 

So that if any traveller after staying two days in Limerick should 
think fit to present the reader with forty or fifty pages of dissertation 
upon the antiquities and history of the place, upon the state of com- 
merce, religion, education, the public may be pretty well sure that 
the traveller has been at work among the guide-books, and filching 
extracts from the topographical and local works. 

They say there are three towns to make one Limerick : there is 
the Irish Town on the Clare side ; the English Town with its old 
castle (which has sustained a deal of battering and blows from 
Danes, from fierce Irish kings, from English warriors who took an 
interest in the place, Henry Secundians, Elizabethans, Cromwellians, 
and, vice versa, Jacobites, King Williamites, — and nearly escaped 
being in the hands of the Robert Emmettites) ; and finally the district 
called Newtown-Pery. In walking through this latter tract, you are 
at first half led to believe that you are arrived in a second Liverpool, 
so tall are the warehouses and broad the quays ; so neat and trim a 
street of near a mile which stretches before you. But even this mile- 
long street does not, in a few minutes, appear to be so wealthy and 
prosperous as it shows at first glance ; for of the population that 
throng the streets, two-fifths are barefooted Avomen, and two-fifths 
more ragged men : and the most part of the shops which have a 
grand show with them appear, when looked into, to be no better 
than they should be, being empty makeshift-looking places with 
their best goods outside. 



LIMERICK. 137 

Here, in this handsome street too, is a handsome club-house, with 
plenty of idlers, you may be sure, lolling at the portico ; likewise you 
see numerous young officers, with very tight waists and absurd brass 
shell-epaulettes to their little absurd frock-coats, walking the pave- 
ment — the dandies of the street. Then you behold whole troops of 
pear-, apple-, and plum-women, selling very raw, green-looking fruit, 
which, indeed, it is a wonder that any one should eat and live. The 
houses are bright red — the street is full and gay, carriages and cars in 
plenty go jingling by — dragoons in red are every now and then clatter- 
ing up the street, and as upon every car which passes with ladies in 
it you are sure (I don't know how it is) to see a pretty one, the great 
street of Limerick is altogether a very brilliant and animated sight. 

If the ladies of the place are pretty, indeed the vulgar are scarcely 
less so. I never saw a greater number of kind, pleasing, clever-looking 
faces among any set of people. There seem, however, to be two 
sorts of physiognomies which are common : the pleasing and some- 
what melancholy one before mentioned, and a square, high-cheeked, 
flat-nosed physiognomy, not uncommonly accompanied by a hideous 
staring head of dry red hair, Except, however, in the latter case, the 
hair flowing loose and long is a pretty characteristic of the women of 
the country : many a fair one do you see at the door of the cabin, or 
the poor shop in the town, combing complacently that "greatest 
ornament of female beauty," as Mr. Rowland justly calls it. 

The generality of the women here seem also much better clothed 
than in Kerry ; and I saw many a one going barefoot, whose gown 
was nevertheless a good one, and whose cloak was of fine cloth. 
Likewise it must be remarked, that the beggars in Limerick were by 
no means so numerous as those in Cork, or in many small places 
through which I have passed. There were but five, strange to say, 
round the mail-coach as we went away ; and, indeed, not a great 
number in the streets. 

The belles lettres seem to be by no means so well cultivated here 
as in Cork. I looked in vain for a Limerick guide-book : I saw but 
one good shop of books, and a little trumpery circulating library, 
which seemed to -be provided with those immortal works of a year 
old — which, having been sold for half-a-guinea the volume at first, 
are suddenly found to be worth only a shilling. Among these, let 
me mention, with perfect resignation to the decrees of fate, the works 
of one Titmarsh : they were rather smartly bound by an enterprising 



138 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

publisher, and I looked at them in Bishop Murphy's Library at Cork, 
in a book-shop in the remote little town of Ennis, and elsewhere, 
with a melancholy tenderness. Poor flowerets of a season ! (and a 
very short season too), let me be allowed to salute your scattered 
leaves with a passing sigh ! . . . . Besides the book-shops, I observed 
in the long, best street of Limerick a half-dozen of what are called 
French shops, with knicknacks, German-silver chimney-ornaments, 
and paltry finery. In the windows of these you saw a card with 
"Cigars;" in the book-shop, "Cigars ;" at the grocer's, the whisky- 
shop, " Cigars : " everybody sells the noxious weed, or makes believe 
to sell it, and I know no surer indication of a struggling, uncertain 
trade than that same placard of " Cigars." I went to buy some of the 
pretty Limerick gloves (they are chiefly made, as I have since dis- 
covered, at Cork). I think the man who sold them had a patent 
from the Queen, or his Excellency, or both, in his window : but, 
seeing a friend pass just as I entered the shop, he brushed past, and 
held his friend in conversation for some minutes in the street, — about 
the Killarney races no doubt, or the fun going on at Kilkee. I 
might have swept away a bagful of walnut - shells containing the 
flimsy gloves ; but instead walked out, making him a low bow, and 
saying I would call next week. He said "wouldn't I wait?" and 
resumed his conversation ; and, no doubt, by this way of doing 
business, is making a handsome independence. I asked one of the 
ten thousand fruit-women the price of her green pears. " Twopence 
a-piece," she said ; and there were two little ragged beggars standing 
by, who were munching the fruit. A book-shopwoman made me pay 
threepence for a bottle of ink which usually costs a penny ; a potato- 
woman told me that her potatoes cost fourteenpence a stone : and 
all these ladies treated the stranger with a leering, wheedling servility 
which made me long to box their ears, were it not that the man who 
lays his hand upon a woman is an &c, whom 'twere gross flattery to 
call a what-d'ye-call-'im ? By the way, the man who played Duke 
Aranza at Cork delivered the celebrated claptrap above alluded to as 
follows : — 

" The man who lays his hand upon a woman, 
Save in the way of kindness, is a villain, 
Whom 'twere a gross piece of flattery to call a coward ; " 

and looked round calmly for the applause, which deservedly followed 
his new reading of the passage. 



LIMERICK. 139 

To return to the apple-women :- — legions of ladies were employed 
through the town upon that traffic ; there were really thousands of 
them, clustering upon the bridges, squatting down in doorways and 
vacant sheds for temporary markets, marching and crying their sour 
goods in all the crowded lanes of the city. After you get out of the 
Main Street the handsome part of the town is at an end, and you 
suddenly find yourself in such a labyrinth of busy swarming poverty 
and squalid commerce as never was seen — no, not in Saint Giles's, 
where Jew and Irishman side by side exhibit their genius for dirt. 
Here every house almost was a half ruin, and swarming with people : 
in the cellars you looked down and saw a barrel of herrings, which a 
merchant was dispensing; or a sack of meal, which a poor dirty 
woman sold to people poorer and dirtier than herself: above was a 
tinman, or a shoemaker, or other craftsman, his battered ensign at the 
door, and his small wares peering through the cracked panes of his 
shop. As for the ensign, as a matter of course the name is never 
written in letters of the same size. You read — 



PAT* HANiaH^ 
T4tLQ/L 



JAME. 5 HUR.L EY 
SHOE MAK er 



or some similar signboard. High and low, in this country, they 
begin things on too large a scale. They begin churches too big and 
can't finish them ; mills and houses too big, and are ruined before 
they are done ; letters on signboards too big, and are up in a corner 
before the inscription is finished. There is something quite strange, 
really, in this general consistency. 

Well, over James Hurley, or Pat Hanlahan, you will most likely 
see another board of another tradesman, with a window to the full as 
curious. Above Tim Carthy evidently lives another family. There 
are long-haired girls of fourteen at every one of the windows, and 
dirty children everywhere. In the cellars, look at them in dingy 
white nightcaps over a bowl of stirabout ; in the shop, paddling up 
and down the ruined steps, or issuing from beneath the black 
counter ; up above, see the girl of fourteen is tossing and dandling 
one of them : and a pretty tender sight it is, in the midst of this filth 
and wretchedness, to see the women and children together. It makes 
a sunshine in the dark place, and somehow half reconciles one to it. 
Children are everywhere. Look out of the nasty streets into the still 



140 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

more nasty back lanes : there they are, sprawling at every door and 
court, paddling in every puddle ; and in about a fair proportion to 
every six children an old woman — a very old, blear-eyed, ragged 
woman — who makes believe to sell something out of a basket, and is 
perpetually calling upon the name of the Lord. For every three 
ragged old women you will see two ragged old men, praying and 
moaning like the females. And there is no lack of young men, either, 
though I never could make out what they were about : they loll about 
the street, chiefly conversing in knots ; and in every street you will be 
pretty sure to see a recruiting-sergeant, with gay ribbons in his cap, 
loitering about with an eye upon the other loiterers there. The buzz 
and hum and chattering of this crowd is quite inconceivable to us in 
England, where a crowd is generally silent. As a person with a decent 
coat passes, they stop in their talk and say, " God bless you for a 
fine gentleman!" In these crowded streets, where all are beggars, 
the beggary is but small : only the very old and hideous venture to 
ask for a penny, otherwise the competition would be too great. 

As for the buildings that one lights upon every now and then in 
the midst of such scenes as this, they are scarce worth the trouble to 
examine : occasionally you come on a chapel with sham Gothic windows 
and a little belfry, one of the Catholic places of worship ; then, placed 
in some quiet street, a neat-looking Dissenting meeting-house. Across 
the river yonder, as you issue out from the street where the preceding 
sketch was taken, is a handsome hospital ; near it the old cathedral, 
a barbarous old turreted edifice— of the fourteenth century it is said : 
how different to the sumptuous elegance which characterizes the 
English and continental churches of the same period ! Passing by it, 
and walking down other streets, — black, ruinous, swarming, dark, 
hideous, — you come upon the barracks and the walks of the old 
castle, and from it on to an old bridge, from which the view is a fine 
one. On one side are the gray bastions of the castle ; beyond them, 
in the midst of the broad stream, stands a huge mill that looks like 
another castle ; further yet is the handsome new Wellesley Bridge, 
with some little craft upon the river, and the red warehouses of the 
New Town looking prosperous enough. The Irish Town stretches 
away to the right ; there are pretty villas beyond it ; and on the 
bridge are walking twenty-four young girls, in parties of four and five, 
with their arms round each other's waists, swaying to and fro, and 
singing or chattering, as happy as if they had shoes to their feet. 



LIMERICK. 141 

Yonder you see a dozen pair of red legs glittering in the water, their 
owners being employed in washing their own or other people's rags. 

The Guide-book mentions that one of the aboriginal forests of the 
country is to be seen at a few miles from Limerick, and thinking that 
an aboriginal forest would be a huge discovery, and form an instruc- 
tive and delightful feature of the present work, I hired a car in order 
to visit the same, and pleased myself with visions of gigantic oaks, 
Druids, Norma, wildernesses and awful gloom, which would fill the 
soul with horror. The romance of the place was heightened by a 
fact stated by the carman, viz. that until late years robberies were 
very frequent about the wood ; the inhabitants of the district being a 
wild, lawless race. Moreover, there are numerous castles round about, 
— and for what can a man wish more than robbers, castles, and an 
aboriginal wood ? 

The way to these wonderful sights lies through the undulating 
grounds which border the Shannon ; and though the view is by no 
means a fine one, I know few that are pleasanter than the sight of 
these rich, golden, peaceful plains, with the full harvest waving on 
them and just ready for the sickle. The hay harvest was likewise 
just being concluded, and the air loaded with the rich odour of the 
hay. Above the trees, to your left, you saw the mast of a ship, per- 
haps moving along, and every now and then caught a glimpse of the 
Shannon, and the low grounds and plantations of the opposite county 
of Limerick. Not an unpleasant addition to the landscape, too, was 
a sight which I do not remember to have witnessed often in this 
country — that of several small and decent farm-houses, with their 
stacks and sheds and stables, giving an air of neatness and plenty 
that the poor cabin with its potato-patch does not present. Is it on 
account of the small farms that the land seems richer and better 
cultivated here than in most other parts of the country ? Some of 
the houses in the midst of the warm summer landscape had a strange 
appearance, for it is often the fashion to whitewash the roofs of the 
houses, leaving the slates of the walls of their natural colour : hence, 
and in the evening especially, contrasting with the purple sky, the 
house-tops often looked as if they were covered with snow. 

According to the Guide-book's promise, the castles began soon to 
appear : at one point we could see three of these ancient mansions 
in a line, each seemingly with its little grove of old trees, in the midst 
of the bare but fertile country. By this time, too, we had got into a 



142 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

road so abominably bad and rocky, that I began to believe more and 
more with regard to the splendour of the aboriginal forest, which 
must be most aboriginal and ferocious indeed when approached by 
such a savage path. After travelling through a couple of lines of wall 
with plantations on either side, I at length became impatient as to the 
forest, and, much to my disappointment, was told this was it. For 
the fact is, that though the forest has always been there, the trees 
have not, the proprietors cutting them regularly when grown to no 
great height, and the monarchs of the woods which I saw round 
about would scarcely have afforded timber for a bed-post. Nor did 
any robbers make their appearance in this wilderness : with Avhich 
disappointment, however, I was more willing to put up than with the 
former one. 

But if the wood and the robbers did not come up to my romantic 
notions, the old Castle of Bunratty fully answered them, and indeed 
should be made the scene of a romance, in three volumes at least. 

" It is a huge, square tower, with four smaller ones at each angle; 
and you mount to the entrance by a steep flight of steps, being com- 
manded all the way by the cross-bows of two of the Lord De Clare's 
retainers, the points of whose weapons may be seen lying upon the 
ledge of the little narrow meurtriere on each side of the gate. A 
venerable seneschal, with the keys of office, presently opens the little 
back postern, and you are admitted to the great hall — a noble 
chamber, pardi ! some seventy feet in length and thirty high. Tis 
hung round with a thousand trophies of war and chase, — the golden 
helmet and spear of the Irish king, the long yellow mantle he wore, 
and the huge brooch that bound it. Hugo De Clare slew him before 
the castle in 1305, when he and his kernes attacked it. Less success- 
ful in 1314, the gallant Hugo saw his village of Bunratty burned 
round his tower by the son of the slaughtered O'Neil ; and, sallying 
out to avenge the insult, was brought back — a corpse ! Ah ! what 
was the pang that shot through the fair bosom of the Lady Adda 
when she knew that 'twas the hand of Redmond O'Neil sped the 
shaft which slew her sire ! 

"You listen to this sad story, reposing on an oaken settle 
(covered with deer's-skin taken in the aboriginal forest of Carclow 
hard by) placed at the enormous hall-fire. Here sits Thonom an 
Diaoul, ' Dark Thomas,' the blind harper of the race of De Clare, 
who loves to tell the deeds of the lordly family. ' Penetrating in 



THE BUNRATTY ROMANCE. 143 

disguise,' he continues, ' into the castle, Redmond of the golden 
locks sought an interview with the Lily of Bunratty ; but she screamed 
when she saw him under the disguise of the gleeman, and said, " My 
father's blood is in the hall ! " At this, up started fierce Sir Ranulph. 
" Ho, Bludyer ! " he cried to his squire, " call me the hangman and 
Father John ; seize me, vassals, yon villain in gleeman's guise, and 
hang him on the gallows on the tower ! " ' 

" ' Will it please ye walk to the roof of the old castle and see the 
beam on which the lords of the place execute the refractory ? ' ' Nay, 
marry,' say you, ' by my spurs of knighthood, I have seen hanging 
enough in merry England, and care not to see the gibbets of Irish 
kernes.' The harper would have taken fire at this speech reflecting 
on his country ; but luckily here Gulph, your English squire entered 
from the pantler (with whom he had been holding a parley), and 
brought a manchet of bread, and bade ye, in the Lord de Clare's 
name, crush a cup of Ypocras, well spiced, fiardi, and by the fair 
hands of the Lady Adela. 

"'The Lady Adela!' say you, starting up in amaze. 'Is not 
this the year of grace 1600, and lived she not three hundred years 
syne ? ' 

" ' Yes, Sir Knight, but Bunratty tower hath another Lily : will it 
please you see your chamber?' 

" So saying, the seneschal leads you up a winding stair in one 
of the turrets, past one little dark chamber and another, without a 
fireplace, without rushes (how different from the stately houses of 
Nonsuch or Audley End !), and, leading you through another vast 
chamber above the baronial hall, similar in size, but decorated with 
tapestries and rude carvings, you pass the little chapel (' Marry,' says 
the steward, ' many would it not hold, and many do not come ! ') 
until at last you are located in the little cell appropriated to you. 
Some rude attempts have been made to render it fitting for the 
stranger ; but, though more neatly arranged than the hundred other 
little chambers which the castle contains, in sooth 'tis scarce fitted for 
the serving-man, much more for Sir Reginald, the English knight. 

" While you are looking at a bouquet of flowers, which lies on the 
settle — magnolias, geraniums, the blue flowers of the cactus, and in 
the midst of the bouquet, one lily ; whilst you wonder whose fair 
hands could have culled the flowers — hark ! the horns are blowing at 
the drawbridge and the warder lets the portcullis down. You rush 



144 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

to your window, a stalwart knight rides over the gate, the hoofs of his 
black courser clanging upon the planks. A host of wild retainers 
wait round about him : see, four of them carry a stag, that hath been 
slain no doubt in the aboriginal forest of Carclow. ' By my fay ! ' 
say you, ' 'tis a stag of ten.' 

' ; But who is that yonder on the gray palfrey, conversing so 
prettily, and holding the sportive animal with so light a rein ? — 
a light green riding-habit and ruff, a little hat with a green plume — 
sure it must be a lady, and a fair one. She looks up. O blessed 
Mother of Heaven, that look ! those eyes that smile, those 
sunny golden ringlets ! It is — it is the Lady Adela : the Lily of 
Bunrat * * * " 

If the reader cannot finish the other two volumes for him or her- 
self, he or she never deserves to have a novel from a circulating 
library again : for my part, I will take my affidavit the English knight 
will marry the Lily at the end of the third volume, having previously 
slain the other suitor at one of the multifarious sieges of Limerick. 
And I beg to say that the historical part of this romance has been 
extracted carefully from the Guide-book : the topographical and 
descriptive portion being studied on the spot. A policeman shows 
you over it, halls, chapels, galleries, gibbets and all. The huge old 
tower was, until late years, inhabited by the family of the proprietor, 
who built himself a house in the midst of it : but he has since built 
another in the park opposite, and half-a-dozen " Peelers," with a 
commodity of wives and children, now inhabit Bunratty. On the 
gate where we entered were numerous placards offering rewards for 
the apprehension of various country offenders ; and a turnpike, 
a bridge, and a quay have sprung up from the place which Red 
Redmond (or anybody else) burned. 



On our road to Galway the next day, we were carried once more 
by the old tower, and for a considerable distance along the fertile 
banks of the Fergus lake, and a river which pours itself into the 
Shannon. The first town we come to is Castle Clare, which lies 
conveniently on the river, with a castle, a good bridge, and many 
quays and warehouses, near which a small ship or two were lying. 
The place was once the chief town of the county, but is wretched 



ENNIS. 145 

and ruinous now, being made up for the most part of miserable 
thatched cots, round which you see the usual dusky population. The 
drive hence to Ennis lies through a country which is by no means so 
pleasant as that rich one we have passed through, being succeeded 
" by that craggy, bleak, pastoral district which occupies so large 
a portion of the limestone district of Clare." Ennis, likewise, stands 
upon the Fergus — a busy little narrow-streeted, foreign-looking town, 
approached by half-a-mile of thatched cots, in which I am not 
ashamed to confess that I saw some as pretty faces as over any half- 
mile of country I ever travelled in my life. 

A great light of the Catholic Church, who was of late a candle- 
stick in our own communion, was on the coach with us, reading 
devoutly out of a breviary on many occasions along the road. 
A crowd of black coats and heads, with that indescribable look 
which belongs to the Catholic clergy, were evidently on the look-out 
for the coach; and as it stopped, one of them came up to me with a low 

bow, and asked if I was the Honourable and Reverend Mr. S ? 

How I wish I had answered him I was ! It would have been a 
grand scene. The respect paid to this gentleman's descent is quite 
absurd : the papers bandy his title about with pleased emphasis — the 
Galway paper calls him the^ very reverend. There is something in 
the love for rank almost childish : witness the adoration of George 
IV. ; the pompous joy with which John Tuam records his corre- 
spondence with a great man ; the continual My-Lording of the 
Bishops, the Right-Honourabling of Mr. O'Connell— which title his 
party papers delight on all occasions to give him — nay, the delight of 
that great man himself when first he attained the dignity : he figured 
in his robes in the most good-humoured' simple delight at having 
them, and went to church forthwith in them ; as if such a man wanted 
a title before his name. 

At Ennis, as well as everywhere else in Ireland, there were of 
course the regular number of swaggering-looking buckeens and 
shabby-genteel idlers to watch the arrival of the mail-coach. A poor 
old idiot, with his gray hair tied up in bows, and with a ribbon 
behind, thrust out a very fair soft hand with taper fingers, and told 
me, nodding his head very wistfully, that he had no father nor 
mother: upon which score he got a penny. Nor did the other 
beggars round the carriage who got none seem to grudge the poor 
fellow's good fortune. I think when one poor wretch has a piece of 

10 



146 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

luck, the others seem glad here : and they promise to pray for you 
just the same if you give as if you refuse. 

The town was swarming with people ; the little dark streets, 
which twist about in all directions, being full of cheap merchandise 
and its vendors. Whether there are many buyers, I can't say. This 
is written opposite the market-place in Gal way, where I have watched 
a stall a hundred times in the course of the last three hours and seen 
no money taken : but at every place I come to, I can't help wonder- 
ing at the numbers ; it seems market-day everywhere — apples, pigs, 
and potatoes being sold all over the kingdom. There seem to be 
some good shops in those narrow streets; among others, a decent 
little library, where I bought, for eighteenpence, six volumes of works 
strictly Irish, that will serve for a half-hour's gossip on the next 
rainy day. 

The road hence to Gort carried us at first by some dismal, lonely- 
looking, reedy lakes, through a melancholy country ; an open village 
standing here and there, with a big chapel in the midst of it, almost 
always unfinished in some point or other. Crossing at a bridge near 
a place called Tubbor, the coachman told us we were in the famous 
county of Galway, which all readers of novels admire in the warlike 
works of Maxwell and Lever ; and, dismal as the country had been 
in Clare, I think on the northern side of the bridge it was dismaller 
still — the stones not only appearing in the character of hedges, but 
strewing over whole fields, in which sheep were browsing as well as 
they could. 

We rode for miles through this stony, dismal district, seeing more 
lakes now and anon, with fellows spearing eels in the midst. Then 
we passed the plantations of Lord Gort's Castle of Loughcooter, and 
presently came to the town which bears his name, or vice versa. It is 
a regularly-built little place, with a square and street : but it looked as 
if it wondered how the deuce it got into the midst of such a desolate 
country, and seemed to bore itself there considerably. It had nothing 
to do, and no society. 

A short time before arriving at Oranmore, one has glimpses of the 
sea, which comesrv-opportunely to relieve the dulness of the land. 
Between Gort and that place we passed through little but the most 
woful country, in the midst of which was a village, where a horse-fair 
was held, and where (upon the word of the coachman) all the bad 
horses of the country were to be seen. The man was commissioned, 



ENNIS TO GORT. 14.7 

no doubt, to buy for his employers, for two or three merchants were 
on the look-out for him, and trotted out their cattle by the side of the 
coach. A very good, neat-looking, smart-trotting chestnut horse, of 
seven years old, was offered by the owner for 8/. ; a neat brown mare 
for 10/., and a better (as I presume) for 14/.; but all looked very 
respectable, and I have the coachman's word for it that they were 
good serviceable horses. Oranmore, with an old castle in the midst 
of the village, woods, and park-plantations round about, and the bay 
beyond it, has a pretty and romantic look ; and the drive, of about 
four miles thence to Galway, is the most picturesque part perhaps of 
the fifty miles' ride from Limerick. The road is tolerably wooded. 
You see the town itself, with its huge old church-tower, stretching 
along the bay, " backed by hills linking into the long chain of 
mountains which stretch across Connemara and the Joyce country." 
A suburb of cots that seems almost endless has, however, an end at 
last among the houses of the town : and a little fleet of a couple 
of hundred fishing-boats was man ceuv ring in the bright waters of the 
bay. 



I4 8 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XV. 

GALWAY — " KILROY'S HOTEL " — GALWAY NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS — 
FIRST NIGHT : AN EVENING WITH CAPTAIN FREENY. 

When it is stated that, throughout the town of Galway, you cannot 
get a cigar which costs more than twopence, Londoners may imagine 
the strangeness and remoteness of the place. The rain poured down 
for two days after our arrival at " Kilroy's Hotel." An umbrella under 
such circumstances is a poor resource : self-contemplation is far more 
amusing ; especially smoking, and a game at cards, if any one will be 
so good as to play. 

But there was no one in the hotel coffee-room who was inclined 
for the sport. The company there, on the day of our arrival, con- 
sisted of two coach-passengers, — a Frenchman who came from Sligo, 
and ordered mutton-chops and f raid potatoes for dinner by himself, a 
turbot which cost two shillings, and in Billingsgate would have been 
worth a guinea, and a couple of native or inhabitant bachelors, who 
frequented the tabk-d' hote. 

By the way, besides these tjiere were at dinner two turkeys (so 
that Mr. Kilroy's two-shilling ordinary was by no means ill supplied) ; 
and, as a stranger, I had the honour of carving these animals, which 
were dispensed in rather a singular way. There are, as it is generally 
known, to two turkeys four wings. Of the four passengers, one ate 
no turkey, one had a pinion, another the remaining part of the wing, 
and the fourth gentleman took the other three wings for his share. 
Does everybody in Galway eat three wings when there are two turkeys 
for dinner ? One has heard wonders of the country, — the dashing, 
daring, duelling, desperate, rollicking, whisky-drinking people : but 
this wonder beats all. When I asked the Galway turkiphagus (there 
is no other word, for Turkey was invented long after Greece) 
" if he would take a third wing ? " with a peculiar satiric accent on 
the words third wing, which cannot be expressed in writing, but which 
the occasion fully merited, I thought perhaps that, following the 
custom of the country, where everybody, according to Maxwell and 



GALWAY. 149 

Lever, challenges everybody else, — I thought the Galwagian would 
call me out ; but no such thing. He only said, " If you plase, sir," 
in the blandest way in the world ; and gobbled up the limb in a 
twinkling. 

As an encouragement, too, for persons meditating that important 
change of condition, the gentleman was a teetotaller : he took but one 
glass of water to that intolerable deal of bubblyjock. Galway must 
be very -much changed since the days when Maxwell and Lever knew 
it. Three turkey-wings and a glass of water ! But the man cannot 
be the representative of a class, that is clear : it is physically and 
arithmetically impossible. They can't all eat three wings of two 
turkeys at dinner ; the turkeys could not stand it, let alone the men. 
These wings must have been " non usitatse (nee tenues) pennae." 
But no more of these flights ; let us come to sober realities. 

The fact is, that when the rain is pouring down in the streets the 
traveller has little else to remark except these peculiarities of his 
fellow-travellers and inn-sojourners ; and, lest one should be led 
into further personalities, it is best to quit that water-drinking gorman- 
dizer at once, and retiring to a private apartment, to devote one's self 
to quiet observation and the acquisition of knowledge, either by look- 
ing out of the window and examining mankind, or by perusing books, 
and so living with past heroes and ages. 

As for the knowledge to be had by looking out of window, it is 
this evening not much. A great, wide, blank, bleak, water-whipped 
square lies before the bed-room window; at the opposite side of which 
is to be seen the opposition hotel, looking even more bleak and 
cheerless than that over which Mr. Kilroy presides. Large dismal ware- 
houses and private houses form three sides of the square ; and in the 
midst is a bare pleasure-ground surrounded by a growth of gaunt iron- 
railings, the only plants seemingly in the place. Three triangular 
edifices that look somewhat like gibbets stand in the paved part of the 
square, but the victims that are consigned to their fate under these 
triangles are only potatoes, which are weighed there ; and, in spite of 
the torrents of rain, a crowd of barefooted, red-petticoated women, and 
men in grey coats and flower-pot hats, are pursuing their little bargains 
with the utmost calmness. The rain seems to make no impression 
on the males; nor do the women guard against it more than by 
flinging a petticoat over their heads, and so stand bargaining and 
chattering in Irish, their figures indefinitely reflected in the shining, 



ISO THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

varnished pavement. Donkeys and pony-carts innumerable stand 
around, similarly reflected ; and in the baskets upon these vehicles 
you see shoals of herrings lying. After a short space this prospect 
becomes somewhat tedious, and one looks to other sources of 
consolation. 

The eighteenpennyworth of little books purchased at Ennis in 
the morning came here most agreeably to my aid ; and indeed they 
afford many a pleasant hour's reading. Like the " Bibliotheque 
Grise," which one sees in the French cottages in the provinces, and the 
German " Volksbiicher," both of which contain stores of old legends 
that are still treasured in the country, these yellow-covered books are 
prepared for the people chiefly ; and have been sold for many long 
years before the march of knowledge began to banish Fancy out of 
the world, and gave us, in place of the old fairy tales, Penny 
Magazines and similar wholesome works. Where are the little 
harlequin-backed story-books that used to be read by children in 
England some thirty years ago ? Where such authentic narratives as 
" Captain Bruce's Travels," " The Dreadful Adventures of Sawney 
Bean," &c, which were commonly supplied to little boys at school 
by the same old lady who sold oranges and alycompayne ? — they are 
all gone out of the world, and replaced by such books as " Con- 
versations on Chemistry," " The Little Geologist," " Peter Parley's 
Tales about the Binomial Theorem," and the like. The world will 
be a dull world some hundreds of years hence, when Fancy shall be 
dead, and ruthless Science (that has no more bowels than a steam- 
engine) has killed her. 

It is a comfort, meanwhile, to come on occasions on some of the 
good old stories and biographies. These books were evidently 
written before the useful had attained its present detestable popularity. 
There is nothing useful here, that's certain : and a man will be 
puzzled to extract a precise moral out of the " Adventures of Mr. James 
Freeny ; " or out of the legends in the " Hibernian Tales ;" or out of 
the lamentable tragedy of the " Battle of Aughrim," writ in most doleful 
Anglo-Irish verse. But are we to reject all things that have not a 
moral tacked to them ? " Is there any moral shut within the bosom 
of the rose?" And yet, as the same noble poet sings (giving a 
smart slap to the utility people the while), " useful applications lie in 
art and nature," and every man may find a moral suited to his mind 
in them ; or, if not a moral, an occasion for moralizing. 



CAPTAIN FREEKY. 151 

Honest Freeny's adventures (let us begin with history and historic 
tragedy, and leave fancy for future consideration), if they have a 
moral, have that dubious one which the poet admits may be elicited 
from a rose; and which every man may select according to his 
mind. And surely this is a far better and more comfortable system 
of moralising than that in the fable-books, where you are obliged 
to accept the story with the inevitable moral corollary that will stick 
close to it. 

Whereas, in Freeny's life, one man may see the evil of drinking, 
another the harm of horse-racing, another the danger attendant on 
early marriage, a fourth the exceeding inconvenience as well as 
hazard of the heroic highwayman's life — which a certain Ainsworth, 
in company with a certain Cruikshank, has represented as so poetic 
and brilliant, so prodigal of delightful adventure, so adorned with 
champagne, gold-lace, and brocade. 

And the best part of worthy Freeny's tale is the noble naivete 
and simplicity of the hero as he recounts his own adventures, and 
the utter unconsciousness that he is narrating anything wonderful. 
It is the way of all great men, who recite their great actions 
modestly, and as if they were matters of course ; as indeed to them 
they are. A common tyro, having perpetrated a great deed, would 
be amazed and flurried at his own action ; whereas I make no doubt 
the Duke of Wellington, after a great victory, took his tea and went 
to bed just as quietly as he would after a dull debate in the House of 
Lords. And so with Freeny, — his great and charming characteristic 
is grave simplicity : he does his work ; he knows his danger as well 
as another ; but he goes through his fearful duty quite quietly and 
easily, and not with the least air of bravado, or the smallest notion 
that he is doing anything uncommon. 

It is related of Carter, the Lion-King, that when he was a boy. 
and exceedingly fond of gingerbread-nuts, a relation gave him a 
parcel of those delicious cakes, which the child put in his pocket 
just as he was called on to go into a cage with a very large and 
roaring lion. He had to put his head into the forest-monarch's jaws, 
and leave it there for a considerable time, to the delight of thousands : 
as is even now the case ; and the interest was so much the greater, 
as the child was exceedingly innocent, rosy-cheeked, and pretty. To 
have seen that little flaxen head bitten off by the lion would have 
been a far more pathetic spectacle than that of the decapitation of 



152 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

some grey-bearded old unromantic keeper, who had served out raw- 
meat and stirred up the animals with a pole any time these twenty 
years : and the interest rose in consequence. 

While the little darling's head was thus enjawed, what was the 
astonishment of everybody to see him put his hand into his little 
pocket, take out a paper — from the paper a gingerbread-nut — pop 
that gingerbread-nut into the lion's mouth, then into his own, and so 
finish at least two-pennyworth of nuts ! 

The excitement was delirious : the ladies, when he came out of 
chancery, were for doing what the lion had not done, and eating hirn^ 
up — with kisses. And the only remark the young hero made was, 
" Uncle, them nuts wasn't so crisp as them I had t'other day." He 
never thought of the danger, — he only thought of the nuts. 

Thus it is with Freeny. It is fine to mark his bravery, and to 
see how he cracks his simple philosophic nuts in the jaws of 
innumerable lions. 

At the commencement of the last century, honest Freeny's father 
was house-steward in the family of Joseph Robbins, Esq., of Bally- 
duff ; and, marrying Alice Phelan, a maid-servant in the same family, 
had issue James, the celebrated Irish hero. At a proper age James 
was put to school ; but being a nimble, active lad, and his father's 
mistress taking a fancy to him, he was presently brought to Ballyduff, 
where she had a private tutor to instruct him during the time which 
he could spare from his professional duty, which was that of pantry- 
boy in Mr. Robbins's establishment. At an early age he began to 
neglect his duty; and although his father, at the excellent Mrs. 
Robbins's suggestion, corrected him very severely, the bent of his 
genius was not to be warped by the rod, and he attended "all the 
little country dances, diversions and meetings, and became what is 
called a good dancer ; his own natural inclinations hurrying him " (as 
he finely says) " into the contrary diversions." 

He was scarce twenty years old when he married (a frightful 
proof of the wicked recklessness of his former courses), and set up 
in trade in Waterford ; where, however, matters went so ill with him, 
that he was speedily without money, and 50/. in debt. He had, he 
says, not any way of paying the debt, except by selling his furniture 
or his riding-mare, to both of which measures he was averse : for 
where is the gentleman in Ireland that can do without a horse to 
ride? Mr. Freeny and his riding-mare became soon famous, inso- 



A NIGHT WITH FREENY. 153 

much that a thief in gaol warned the magistrates of Kilkenny to 
beware of a one-eyed man with a mare. 

These unhappy circumstances sent him on the highway to seek 
a maintenance, and his first exploit was to rob a gentleman of fifty 
pounds ; then he attacked another, against whom he " had a secret dis- 
gust, because this gentleman had prevented his former master from 
giving him a suit of clothes ! " 

Urged by a noble resentment against this gentleman, Mr. Freeny, 
in company with a friend by the name of Reddy, robbed the gentle- 
man's house, taking therein 70/. in money, which was honourably 
divided among the captors. 

" We then," continues Mr. Freeny, " quitted the house with the 
booty, and came to Thomastown ; but not knowing how to dispose 
of the plate, left it with Reddy, who said he had a friend from whom 
he would get cash for it. In some time afterwards I asked him for 
the dividend of the cash he got for the plate, but all the satisfaction 
he gave me was, that it was lost, which occasioned me to have my 
own opinion of him" 

Mr. Freeny then robbed Sir William Fownes' servant of 14/., 
in such an artful manner that everybody believed the servant had 
himself secreted the money ; and no doubt the rascal was turned 
adrift, and starved in consequence — a truly comic incident, and one 
that could be used, so as to provoke a great deal of laughter, in an 
historical work of which our champion should be the hero. 

The next enterprise of importance is that against the house 
of Colonel Palliser, which Freeny thus picturesquely describes. 
Coming with one of his spies close up to the house, Mr. Freeny 
watched the Colonel lighted to bed by a servant ; and thus, as he 
cleverly says, could judge " of the room the Colonel lay in." 

" Some time afterwards," says Freeny, " I observed a light 
upstairs, by which I judged the servants were going to bed, and soon 
after observed that the candles were all quenched, by which I assured 
myself they were all gone to bed. I then came back to where the 
men were, and appointed Bulger, Motley, and Commons to go in 
along with me ; but Commons answered that he never had been in 
any house before where there were arms : upon which I asked the 
coward what business he had there, and swore I would as soon shoot 
him as look at him, and at the same time cocked a pistol to his 
breast ; but the rest of the men prevailed upon me to leave him at 



154 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

the back of the house, where he might run away when he thought 
proper. 

" I then asked Grace where did he choose to be posted : he 
answered 'that he would go where I pleased to order him,' for 
which I thanked him. We then immediately came up to the house, 
lighted our candles, put Houlahan at the back of the house to pre- 
vent any person from coming out that way, and placed Hacket on my 
mare, well armed, at the front ; and I then broke one of the windows 
with a sledge, whereupon Bulger, Motley, Grace, and I got in ; upon 
which I ordered Motley and Grace to go upstairs, and Bulger and I 
would stay below, where we thought the greatest danger would be ; 
but I immediately, upon second consideration, for fear Motley or 
Grace should be daunted, desired Bulger to go up with them, and 
when he had fixed matters above, to come down, as I judged the 
Colonel lay below. I then went to the room where the Colonel was, 
and burst open the door ; upon which he said, ' Odds-wounds ! who's 
there?' to which I answered, 'A friend, sir;' upon which he said, 
' You lie ! by G-d, you are no friend of mine ! ' I then said that I 
was, and his relation also, and that if he viewed me close he would 
know me, and begged of him not to be angry : upon which I 
immediately seized a bullet-gun and case of pistols, which I observed 
hanging up in his room. I then quitted his room, and walked round 
the lower part of the house, thinking to meet some of the servants, 
whom I thought would strive to make their escape from the men who 
were above, and meeting none of them, I immediately returned to 
the Colonel's room ; where I no sooner entered than he desired me 
to go out for a villain, and asked why I bred such disturbance in his 
house at that time of night. At the same time I snatched his breeches 
from under his head, wherein I got a small purse of gold, and said 
that abuse was not fit treatment for me who was his relation, and that 
it would hinder me of calling to see him again. I then demanded 
the key of his desk which stood in his room; he answered he 
had no key ; upon which I said I had a very good key ; at the 
same time giving it a stroke with the sledge, which burst it open, 
wherein I got a purse of ninety guineas, a four-pound piece, two 
moidores, some small gold, and a large glove with twenty-eight 
guineas in silver. 

" By this time Bulger and Motley came downstairs to me, after 
rifling the house above. We then observed a closet inside his room, 



TRUE PRESENCE OF MIND. 155 

which we soon entered, and got therein a basket wherein there was 
plate to the value of three hundred pounds." 

And so they took leave of Colonel Palliser, and rode away with 
their earnings. 

The story, as here narrated, has that simplicity which is beyond 
the reach of all except the very highest art ; and it is not high art 
certainly which Mr. Freeny can be said to possess, but a noble 
nature rather, which leads him thus grandly to describe scenes 
wherein he acted a great part. With what a gallant determination 
does he inform the coward Commons that he would shoot him " as 
soon as look at him ;" and how dreadful he must have looked (with 
his one eye) as he uttered that sentiment ! But he left him, he says 
with a grim humour, at the back of the house, " where he might run 
away when he thought proper." The Duke of Wellington must 
have read Mr. Freeny's history in his youth (his Grace's birthplace 
is not far from the scene of the other gallant Irishman's exploit), 
for the Duke acted in precisely a similar way by a Belgian Colonel 
at Waterloo. 

It must be painful to great and successful commanders to think 
how their gallant comrades and lieutenants, partners of their toil, 
their feelings, and their fame, are separated from them by time, by 
death, by estrangement — nay, sometimes by treason. Commons is 
off, disappearing noiseless into the deep night, whilst his comrades 
perform the work of danger; and Bulger, — Bulger, who in the 
above scene acts so gallant a part, and in whom Mr. Freeny places 
so much confidence— actually went away to England, carrying off 
" some plate, some shirts, a gold watch, and a diamond ring " of the 
Captain's ; and, though he returned to his native country, the 
valuables did not return with him, on which the Captain swore he 
would blow his brains out. As for poor Grace, he was hanged, 
much to his leader's sorrow, who says of him that he was " the 
faithfullest of his spies." Motley was sent to Naas gaol for the 
very robbery : and though Captain Freeny does not mention his 
ultimate fate, 'tis probable he was hanged too. Indeed, the warrior's 
life is a hard one, and over misfortunes like these the feeling heart 
cannot but sigh. 

But, putting out of the question the conduct and fate of the 
Captain's associates, let us look to his own behaviour as a leader. 
It is impossible not to admire his serenity, his dexterity, that dashing 



156 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

impetuosity in the moment of action and that aquiline coup-d'oeil 
which belong to but few generals. He it is who leads the assault, 
smashing in the window with a sledge ; he bursts open the Colonel's 
door, who says (naturally enough), "Odds-wounds! who's there?" 
" A friend, sir," says Freeny. • " You lie ! by G-d, you are no 
friend of mine ! " roars the military blasphemer. " I then said that I 
was, and his relation also, and that if he viewed me close he would 
know me, and begged of him not to be angry : tipon which I imme- 
diately seized a brace of pistols which I observed hanging up in his 
room." That is something like presence of mind : none of your 
brutal braggadocio work, but neat, wary— nay, sportive bearing in the 
face of danger. And again, on the second visit to the Colonel's 
room, when the latter bids him " go out for a villain, and not breed 
a disturbance," what reply makes Freeny? "At the same time I 
snatched his breeches from under his head." A common man would 
never have thought of looking for them in such a place at all. The 
difficulty about the key he resolves in quite an Alexandrian manner ; 
and, from the specimen we already have had of the Colonel's style of 
speaking, we may fancy how ferociously he lay in bed and swore, 
after Captain Freeny and his friends had disappeared with the ninety 
guineas, the moidores, the four-pound piece, and the glove with 
twenty-eight guineas in silver. 

As for the plate, he hid it in a wood; and then, being out of 
danger, he sat down and paid everybody his deserts. By the way, 
what a strange difference of opinion is there about a man's deserts / 
Here sits Captain Freeny with a company of gentlemen, and awards 
them a handsome sum of money for an action which other people 
would have remunerated with a halter. Which are right? perhaps 
both : but at any rate it will be admitted that the Captain takes the 
humane view of the question. 

The greatest enemy Captain Freeny had was Counsellor Robbins, 
a son of his old patron, and one of the most determined thief-pursuers 
the country ever knew. But though he was untiring in his efforts to 
capture (and of course to hang) Mr. Freeny, and jthough the latter 
was strongly urged by his friends to blow the Counsellor's brains out: 
yet, to his immortal honour it is said, he refused that temptation, 
agreeable as it was, declaring that he had eaten too much of that 
family's bread ever to take the life of one of them, and being besides 
quite aware that the Counsellor was only acting against him in a 



A LAWYER IN AMBUSH. 157 

public capacity. He respected him, in fact, like an honourable 
though terrible adversary. 

How deep a stratagem-inventor the Counsellor was, may be 
gathered from the following narration of one of his plans : — 

" Counsellor Robbins finding his brother had not got intelligence 
that was sufficient to carry any reasonable foundation for appre- 
hending us, walked out as if merely for exercise, till he met with a 
person whom he thought he could confide in, and desired the person 
to meet him at a private place appointed for that purpose, which they 
did ; and he told that person he had a very good opinion of him, 
from the character received from his father of him, and from his own 
knowledge of him, and hoped that the person would then show him 
that such opinion was not ill founded. The person assuring the 
Counsellor he would do all in his power to serve and oblige him, the 
Counsellor told him how greatly he was concerned to hear the scan- 
dalous character that part of the country (which had formerly been 
an honest one) had lately fallen into ; that it was said that a gang 
of robbers who disturbed the country lived thereabouts. The person 
told him he was afraid what he said was too true ; and, on being 
asked whom he suspected, he named the same four persons 
Mr. Robbins had, but said he dare not, for fear of being murdered, 
be too inquisitive, and therefore could not say anything material. The 
Counsellor asked him if he knew where there was any private ale to 
be sold ; and he said Moll Burke, who lived near the end of 
Mr. Robbins's avenue, had a barrel or half a barrel. The Counsellor 
then gave the person a moidore, and desired him to go to Thomas- 
town and buy two or three gallons of whisky, and bring it to Moll 
Burke's, and invite as many as he suspected to be either principals or 
accessories to take a drink, and make them drink very heartily, and 
when he found they were fuddled, and not sooner, to tell some of the 
hastiest that some other had said some bad things of them, so as to 
provoke them to abuse and quarrel with each other ; and then, 
probably, in their liquor and passion, they might make some dis- 
coveries of each other, as may enable the Counsellor to get some one 
of the gang to discover and accuse the rest. 

"The person accordingly got the whisky and invited a good 
many to drink ; but the Counsellor being then at his brother's, a few 
only went to Moll Burke's, the rest being afraid to venture while the 
Counsellor was in the neighbourhood : among those who met there 



158 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

was one Moll Brophy, the wife of Mr. Robbins's smith, and one 
Edmund or Edward Stapleton, otherwise Gaul, who lived there- 
abouts ; and when they had drank plentifully, the Counsellor's spy 
told Moll Brophy that Gaul had said she had gone astray with some 
persons or other : she then abused Gaul, and told him he was one of 
Freeny's accomplices, for that he, Gaul, had told her he had seen 
Colonel Palliser's watch with Freeny, and that Freeny had told him, 
Gaul, that John Welsh and the two Graces had been with him at the 
robbery. 

" The company on their quarrel broke up, and the next morning 
the spy met the Counsellor at the place appointed, at a distance from 
Mr. Robbins's house, to prevent suspicion, and there told the 
Counsellor what intelligence he had got. The Counsellor not being 
then a justice of the peace, got his brother to send for Moll Brophy 
to be examined ; but when she came, she refused to be sworn or to 
give any evidence, and thereupon the Counsellor had her tied and 
put on a car in order to be carried to gaol on a mittimus from 
Mr. Robbins, for refusing to give evidence on behalf of the Crown. 
When she found she would really be sent to gaol, she submitted to 
be sworn, and the Counsellor drew from her what she had said the 
night before, and something further, and desired her not to tell any- 
body what she had sworn." 

But if the Counsellor was acute, were there not others as clever as 
he ? For when, in consequence of the information of Mrs. Brophy, 
some gentlemen who had been engaged in the burglarious enterprises 
in which Mr. Freeny obtained so much honour were seized and tried, 
Freeny came forward with the best of arguments in their favour. 
Indeed, it is fine to see these two great spirits matched one against 
the other, — the Counsellor, with all the regular force of the country 
to back him, — the Highway General, with but the wild resources of 
his gallant genius, and with cunning and bravery for his chief allies. 

" I lay by for a considerable time after, and concluded within 
myself to do no more mischief till after the assizes, when I would 
hear how it went with the men who were then in confinement. Some 
time before the assizes Counsellor Robbins came to Ballyduff, and 
told his brother that he believed Anderson and Welsh were guilty, 
and also said he would endeavour to have them both hanged : of 
which I was informed. 

'' Soon after, I went to the house of one George Roberts, who 



A JURY FOR EVER! 159 

asked me if I had any regard for those fellows who were then con- 
fined (meaning Anderson and Welsh). I told him I had a regard for 
one of them : upon which he said he had a friend who was a man of 
power and interest, — that he would save either of them, provided I 
would give him five guineas. I told him I would give him ten, and 
the first gold watch I could get ; whereupon he said that it was of no 
use to speak to his friend without the money or value, for that he was 
a mercenary man : on which I told Roberts I had not so much 
money at that time, but that I would give him my watch as a pledge 
to give his friend. I then gave him my watch, and desired him to 
engage that I would pay the money which I promised to pay, or give 
value for it in plate, in two or three nights after; upon which he 
engaged that his friend would act the needful. Then we appointed a 
night to meet, and we accordingly met ; and Roberts told me that his 
friend agreed to save Anderson and Welsh from the gallows ; where- 
upon I gave him a plate tankard, value 10/., a large ladle, value 4/., 
with some tablespoons. The assizes of Kilkenny, in spring, 1748, 
coming on soon after, Counsellor Robbins had Welsh transmitted 
from Naas to Kilkenny, in order to give evidence against Anderson 
and Welsh ; and they were tried for Mrs. Mounford's robbery, on the 
evidence of John Welsh and others. The physic working well, six of 
the jury were for finding them guilty, and six more for acquitting 
them; and the other six finding them peremptory, and that they were 
resolved to starve the others into compliance, as they say they may 
do by law, were for their own sakes obliged to comply with them, 
and they were acquitted. On which Counsellor Robbins began to 
smoke the affair, and suspect the operation of gold dust, which was 
well applied for my comrades, and thereupon left the court in a rage, 
and swore he would for ever quit the country, since he found people 
were not satisfied with protecting and saving the rogues they had 
under themselves, but must also show that they could and would 
oblige others to have rogues under them whether they would or no." 

Here Counsellor Robbins certainly loses that greatness which 
has distinguished him in his former attack on Freeny ; the Coun- 
sellor is defeated and loses his temper. Like Napoleon, he is 
unequal to reverses : in adverse fortune his presence of mind 
deserts him. 

But what call had he to be in a passion at all ? It may be very 
well for a man to.be in a rage because he is disappointed of his prey : 



160 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

so is the hawk, when the dove escapes, in a rage ; but let us reflect 
that, had Counsellor Robbins had his will, two honest fellows 
would have been hanged ; and so let us be heartily thankful that 
he was disappointed, and that these men were acquitted by a jury 
of their countrymen. What right had the Counsellor, forsooth, 
to interfere with their verdict ? Not against Irish juries at least 
does the old satire apply, "And culprits hang that jurymen may 
dine ? " At Kilkenny, on the contrary, the jurymen starve in order 
that the culprits might be saved — a noble and humane act of self- 
denial. 

In another case, stern justice, and the law of self-preservation, 
compelled Mr. Freeny to take a very different course with respect 
to one of his ex-associates. In the former instance we have seen 
him pawning his watch, giving up tankard, tablespoons — all, for 
his suffering friends ; here we have his method of dealing with 
traitors. 

One of his friends, by the name of Dooliug, was taken prisoner, 
and condemned to be hanged, which gave Mr. Freeny, he says, " a 
great shock ; " but presently this Dooling's fears were worked upon 
by some traitors within the gaol, and — 

" He then consented to discover ; but I had a friend in gaol at 
the same time, one Patrick Healy, who daily insinuated to him that it 
was of no use or advantage to him to discover anything, as he received 
sentence of death ; and that, after he had made a discovery, they would 
leave him as he was, without troubling themselves about a reprieve. 
But notwithstanding, he told the gentlemen that there was a man 
blind of an eye who had a bay-mare, that lived at the other side of 
Thomastown bridge, whom he assured them would be very trouble- 
some in that neighbourhood after his death. When Healy discovered 
what he told the gentlemen, he one night took an opportunity and 
made Dooling fuddled, and prevailed upon him to take his oath he 
never would give the least hint about me any more. He also told 
him the penalty that attended infringing upon his oath — but more 
especially as he was at that time near his end — which had the desired 
effect ; for he never mentioned my name, nor even anything relative 
to me," and so went out of the world repenting of his meditated 
treason. 

What further exploits Mr. Freeny performed may be learned by 
the curious in his history : they are all, it need scarcely be said, of a 



FREENY'S LAST EXPLOITS. 161 

similar nature to that noble action which has already been described. 
His escapes from his enemies were marvellous ; his courage in facing 
them equally great. He is attacked by whole "armies," through 
which he makes his way; wounded, he lies in the woods for days 
together with three bullets in his leg, and in this condition manages 
to escape several "armies" that have been marched against him. 
He is supposed to be dead, or travelling on the continent, and sud- 
denly makes his appearance in his old haunts, advertising his arrival 
by robbing ten men on the highway in a single day. And so 
terrible is his courage, or so popular his manners, that he describes 
scores of labourers looking on while his exploits were performed, 
and not affording the least aid to the roadside traveller whom he 
vanquished. 

But numbers always prevail in the end : what could Leonidas 
himself do against an army ? The gallant band of brothers led by 
Freeny were so pursued by the indefatigable Robbins and his myr- 
midons, that there was no hope left for them, and the Captain saw 
that he must succumb. 

He reasoned, however, with himself (with his usual keen logic), 
and said : " My men must fall, — the world is too strong for us, and, 
to-day, or to-morrow — it matters scarcely when — they must yield. 
They will be hanged for a certainty, and thus will disappear the 
noblest company of knights the world has ever seen. 

" But as they will certainly be hanged, and no power of mine can 
save them, is it necessary that I should follow them too to the tree ? 
and will James Bulger's fate be a whit more agreeable to him, because 
James Freeny dangles at his side? To suppose so, would be to 
admit that he was actuated by a savage feeling of revenge, which I 
know belongs not to his generous nature." 

In a word, Mr. Freeny resolved to turn king's evidence; for 
though he swore (in a communication with the implacable Robbins) 
that he would rather die than betray Bulger, yet when the Counsellor 
stated that he must then die, Freeny says, " I promised to submit, 
and understood that Bulger should be set." 

Accordingly some days afterwards (although the Captain carefully 
avoids mentioning that he had met his friend with any such inten- 
tions as those indicated in the last paragraph) he and Mr. Bulger 
came together : and, strangely enough, it was agreed that the one was 
to sleep while the other kept watch ; and, while thus employed, the 

T . i 



162 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

enemy came upon them. But let Freeny describe for himself the 
iast passages of his history : 

"We then went to Welsh's house, with a view not to make any 
delay there ; but, taking a glass extraordinary after supper, Bulger 
fell asleep. Welsh, in the meantime, told me his house was the safest 
place I could get in that neighbourhood, and while I remained there 
I would be very safe, provided that no person knew of my coming 
there (I had not acquainted him that Breen knew of my coming that 
way). I told Welsh that, as Bulger was asleep, I would not go to bed 
till morning : upon which Welsh and I stayed up all night, and in the 
morning Welsh said that he and his wife had a call to Callen, it 
being market-day. About nine o'clock I went and awoke Bulger, 
desiring him to get up and guard me whilst I slept, as I guarded him 
all night ; he said he would, and then I went to bed charging him to 
watch close, for fear we should be surprised. I put my blunderbuss 
and two cases of pistols under my head, and soon fell fast asleep. 
In two hours after the servant-girl of the house, seeing an enemy 
coming into the yard, ran up to the room where we were, and said 
that there were an hundred men coming into the yard ; upon which 
Bulger immediately awoke me, and, taking up my blunderbuss, he 
fired a shot towards the door, which wounded Mr. Burgess, one of 
the sheriffs of Kilkenny, of which wound he died. They concluded 
to set the house on fire about us, which they accordingly did ; upon 
which I took my fusee in one hand, and a pistol in the other, and 
Bulger did the like, and as we came out of the door, we fired on 
both sides, imagining it to be the best method of dispersing the 
enemy, who were on both sides of the door. We got through them, 
but they fired after us, and as Bulger was leaping over a ditch he 
received a shot in the small of the leg, which rendered him incapable 
of running ; but, getting into a field, where I had the ditch between 
me and the enemy, I still walked slowly with Bulger, till I thought 
the enemy were within shot of the ditch, and then wheeled back to 
the ditch and presented my fusee at them. They all drew back and 
went for their horses to ride round, as the field was wide and open, 
and without cover except the ditch. When I discovered their inten- 
tion I stood in the middle of the field, and one of the gentlemen's 
servants (there were fourteen in number) rode foremost towards me ; 
upon which I told the son of a coward I believed he had no more 
than five pounds a year from his master, and that I would put him in 



FREENY'S LAST EXPLOITS. 163 

such a condition that his master would not maintain him afterwards. 
To which he answered that he had no view of doing us any harm, but 
that he was commanded by his master to ride so near us ; and 
then immediately rode back to the enemy, who were coming towards 
him. They rode almost within shot of us, and I observed they 
intended to surround us in the field, and prevent me from having any 
recourse to the ditch again. Bulger was at this time so bad with the 
wound, that he could not go one step without leaning on my shoulder. 
At length, seeing the enemy coming within shot of me, I laid down 
my fusee and stripped off my coat and waistcoat, and running 
towards them, cried out, ' You sons of cowards, come on, and I will 
blow your brains out ! ' On which they returned back, and then I 
walked easy to the place where I left my clothes, and put them on, 
and Bulger and I walked leisurely some distance further. The enemy 
came a second time, and I occasioned them to draw back as before, 
and then we walked to Lord Dysart's deer-park wall. I got up the 
wall and helped Bulger up. The enemy, who still pursued us, though 
not within shot, seeing us on the wall, one of them fired a random 
shot at us to no purpose. We got safe over the wall, and went from 
thence into my Lord Dysart's wood, where Bulger said he would 
remain, thinking it a safe place ; but I told him he would be safer any- 
where else, for the army of Kilkenny and Callen would be soon about 
the wood, and that he would be taken if he stayed there. Besides, as 
I was very averse to betraying him at all, I could not bear the 
thoughts of his being taken in my company by any party but Lord 
Carrick's. I then brought him about half a mile beyond the wood, 
and left him there in a brake of briars, and looking towards the wood 
I saw it surrounded by the army. There was a cabin near that place 
where I fixed Bulger : he said he would go to it at night, and he 
would send for some of his friends to take care of him. It was then 
almost two o'clock, and we were four hours going to that place, 
which was about two miles from Welsh's house. Imagining that 
there were spies fixed on all the fords and by-roads between that 
place and the mountain, I went towards the bounds of the county 
Tipperary, where I arrived about nightfall, and going to a cabin, I 
asked whether there was any drink sold near that place ? The man 
of the house said there was not ; and as I was very much fatigued, I 
sat down, and there refreshed myself with what the cabin afforded. 
I then begged of the man to sell me a pair of his brogues and stock- 



1 64 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

ings, as I was then barefooted, which he accordingly did. I quitted 
the house, went through Kinsheenah and Poulacoppal, and having 
so many thorns in my feet, I was obliged to go barefooted, and went 
to Sleedelagh, and through the mountains, till I came within four 
miles of Waterford, and going into a cabin, the man of the house 
took eighteen thorns out of the soles of my feet, and I remained in 
and about that place for some time after. 

" In the meantime a friend of mine was told that it was impossible 
for me to escape death, for Bulger had turned against me, and that 
his friends and Stack were resolved upon my life ; but the person 
who told my friend so, also said, that if my friend would set Bulger 
and Breen, I might get a pardon through the Earl of Carrick's means 
and Counsellor Robbins's interest. My friend said that he was sure 
I would not consent to stick a thing, but the best way was to do it un- 
known to me; and my friend accordingly set Bulger, who was taken 
by the Earl of Carrick and his party, and Mr. Fitzgerald, and six of 
Counsellor Robbins's soldiers, and committed to Kilkenny gaol. He 
was three days in gaol before I heard he was taken, being at that time 
twenty miles distant from the neighbourhood ; nor did I hear from him 
or see him since I left him near Lord Dysart's wood, till a friend 
came and told me it was to preserve my life and to fulfil my articles 
that Bulger was taken." 

***** 

" Finding I was suspected, I withdrew to a neighbouring wood 
and concealed myself there till night, and then went to Ballyduff to 
Mr. Fitzgerald and surrendered myself to him, till I could write to 
my Lord Carrick ; which I did immediately, and gave him an account 
of what I escaped, or that I would have gone to Ballylynch and 
surrendered myself there to him, and begged his lordship to send a 
guard for me to conduct me to his house — which he did, and I 
remained there for a few days. 

" He then sent me to Kilkenny gaol ; and at the summer assizes 
following, James Bulger, Patrick Hacket otherwise Bristeen, Martin 
Millea, John Stack, Felix Donelly, Edmund Kenny, and James 
Larrasy were tried, convicted, and executed; and at spring assizes 
following, George Roberts was tried for receiving Colonel Palliser's 
gold watch knowing it to be stolen, but was acquitted on account of 
exceptions taken to my pardon, which prevented my giving evidence. 
At the following assizes, when I had got a new pardon, Roberts was 



ALL HANGED! 165 

again tried for receiving the tankard, ladle, and silver-spoons from 
me knowing them to be stolen, and was convicted and executed. 
At the same assizes, John Reddy, my instructor, and Martin Millea, 
were also tried, convicted, and executed." 

And so they were all hanged : James Bulger, Patrick Hacket or 
Bristeen, Martin Millea, John Stack and Felix Donelly, and Edmund 
Kenny and James Larrasy, with Roberts who received the Colonel's 
watch, the tankard, ladle, and the silver-spoons, were all convicted 
and executed. Their names drop naturally into blank verse. It is 
hard upon poor George Roberts too : for the watch he received was 
no doubt in the very inexpressibles which the Captain himself took 
from the Colonel's head. 

As for the Captain himself, he says that, on going out of gaol, 
Counsellor Robbins and Lord Carrick proposed a subscription for 
him — in which, strangely, the gentlemen of the county would not 
join, and so that scheme came to nothing ; and so he published his 
memoirs in order to get himself a little money. Many a man has 
taken up the pen under similar circumstances of necessity. 

But what became of Captain Freeny afterwards, does not appear. 
Was he an honest man ever after? Was he hanged for subsequent 
misdemeanors ? It matters little to him now ; though, perhaps, 
one cannot help feeling a little wish that the latter fate may have 
befallen him. 

Whatever his death was, however, the history of his life has been 
one of the most popular books ever known in this country. It formed 
the class-book in those rustic universities which are now rapidly dis* 
appearing from among the hedges of Ireland. And lest any English 
reader should, on account of its lowness, quarrel with the introduction 
here of this strange picture of wild courage and daring, let him be 
reconciled by the moral at the end, which, in the persons of Bulger 
and the rest, hangs at the beam before Kilkenny gaol. 



166 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

MORE RAIN IN GALWAY A WALK THERE AND THE SECOND 

GALWAY NIGHT'S ENTERTAINMENT. 

" Seven hills has Rome, seven mouths has Nilus' stream, 
Around the Pole seven burning planets gleam. 
Twice equal these is Galway, Connaughl's Rome : 
Twice seven illustrious tribes here find their home.* 
Twice seven fair towers the city's ramparts guard : 
Each house within is built of marble hard. 
With lofty turret flanked, twice seven the gates, 
Through twice seven bridges water permeates. 
In the high church are twice seven altars raised, 
At each a holy saint and patron's praised. 
Twice seven the convents dedicate to heaven, — 
Seven for the female sex — for godly fathers seven, "f 

Having read in Hardiman's History the quaint inscription in Irish 
Latin, of which the above lines are a version, and looked admiringly 
at the old plans of Galway which are to be found in the same work, 
I was in hopes to have seen in the town some considerable remains 
of its former splendour, in spite of a warning to the contrary which 
the learned historiographer gives. 

* By the help of an Alexandrine, the names of these famous families may also 
be accommodated to verse. 

" Athey, Blake, Bodkin, Browne, Deane, Dorsey, Frinche, 
Joyce, Morech, Skereth, Fonte, Kirowan, Martin, Lynche." 

f If the rude old verses are not very remarkable in quality, in quantity they are 
still more deficient, and take some dire liberties with the laws laid down in the 
Gradus and the Grammar : 

" Septem ornant montes Romam, septem ostia Nilum, 
Tot rutilis stellis splendet in axe Polus. 
Galvia, Polo Niloque bis aequas. Roma Conachtas, 
Bis septem illustres has colit ilia tribus. 
* Bis urbis septem defendunt mrenia turres, 

Intus et en duro est marmore quaeque domus 
Bis septem portae sunt, castra et culmina circum, 

Per totidem pontum permeat unda vias. 
Principe bis septem fulgent altaria templo, 

QuKvis patronae est ara dicata suo, 
Et septem sacrata Deo coenobia, patrum 
Fceminei et sexus, tot pia tecta tenet." 



THE MAYOR OF GALWAY. 167 

The old city certainly has some relics of its former stateliness ; 
and, indeed, is the only town in Ireland I have seen, where an anti- 
quary can find much subject for study, or a lover of the picturesque 
an occasion for using his pencil. It is a wild, fierce, and most 
original old town. Joyce's Castle in one of the principal streets, a 
huge square gray tower, with many carvings and ornaments, is a 
gallant relic of its old days of prosperity, and gives one an awful idea 
of the tenements which the other families inhabited, and which are 
designed in the interesting plate which Mr. Hardiman gives in his 
work. The Collegiate Church, too, is still extant, without its fourteen 
altars, and looks to be something between a church and a castle, and 
as if it should be served by Templars with sword and helmet in pla^ 
of mitre and crosier. The old houses in the Main Street are lS?* 
fortresses : the windows look into a court within ; there is but a. small 
low door, and a few grim windows peering suspiciously into the street. 

Then there is Lombard Street, otherwise called Deadman's Lane, 
with a raw-head and cross-bones and a " memento mori " over the 
door where the dreadful tragedy of the Lynches was acted in 1493. 
If Galway is the Rome of Connaught, James Lynch Fitzstephen, the 
Mayor, may be considered as the Lucius Junius Brutus thereof. 
Lynch had a son who went to Spain as master of one of his father's 
ships, and being of an extravagant, wild turn, there contracted debts, 
and drew bills, and alarmed his father's correspondent, who sent a 
clerk and nephew of his own back in young Lynch's ship to Galway 
to settle accounts. On the fifteenth day, young Lynch threw the 
Spaniard overboard. Coming back to his own country, he reformed 
his life a little, and was on the point of marrying one of the Blakes, 
Burkes, Bodkins, or others, when a seaman who had sailed with him, 
being on the point of death, confessed the murder in which he had 
been a participator. 

Hereon the father, who was chief magistrate of the town, tried 
his son, and sentenced him to death ; and when the clan Lynch rose 
in a body to rescue the young man, and avert such a disgrace from 
their family, it is said that Fitzstephen Lynch hung the culprit with 
his own hand. A tragedy called " The Warden of Galway " has 
been written on the subject, and was acted a few nights before my 
arrival. 

The waters of Lough Corrib, which " permeate " under the 
bridges of the town, go rushing and roaring to the sea with a noise 



168 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

and eagerness only known in Gal way ; and along the banks you see 
all sorts of strange figures washing all sorts of wonderful rags, with 
red petticoats and redder shanks standing in the stream. Pigs are 
in every street : the whole town shrieks with them. There are 
numbers of idlers on the bridges, thousands in the streets, humming 
and swarming in and out of dark old ruinous houses ; congregated 
round numberless apple-stalls, nail-stalls, bottle-stalls, pigsfoot-stalls ; 
in queer old shops, that look to be two centuries old ; loitering about 
warehouses, ruined or not ; looking at the washerwomen washing in 
the river, or at the fish-donkeys, or at the potato-stalls, or at a vessel 
coming into the quay, or at the boats putting out to sea. 







That boat at the quay, by the little old gate, is bound for Arran- 
more ; and one next to it has a freight of passengers for the cliffs of 
Mohir on the Clare coast ; and as the sketch is taken, a hundred 
of people have stopped in the street to look on, and' are buzzing 
behind in Irish, telling the little boys in that language — who will 
persist in placing themselves exactly in the front of the designer — to 
get out of his way : which they do for some time ; but at length 
curiosity is so intense that you are entirely hemmed in and the view 
rendered quite invisible. A sailor's wife comes up — who speaks 
English — with a very wistful face, and begins to hint that them black 
pictures are very bad likenesses, and very dear too for a poor woman, 
and how much would a painted one cost does his honour think? 



GALVVAY. 



169 



And she has her husband that is going to sea to the West Indies 
to-morrow, and she'd give anything to have a picture of him. So I 
made bold to offer to take his likeness for nothing. But he never 
came, except one day at dinner, and not at all on the next day, 
though I stayed on purpose to accommodate him. It is true that it 
was pouring with rain ; and as English waterproof cloaks are not 
waterproof in Ireland, the traveller who has but one coat must of 
necessity respect it, and had better stay where he is, unless he prefers 
to go to bed while he has his clothes dried at the next stage. 

The houses in the fashionable street where the club-house stands 
(a strong building, with an agreeable Old Bailey look,) have the 
appearance of so many little Newgates. The Catholic chapels o.mm 
numerous, unfinished, and ugly. Great warehouses and mills rise up ■ 
by the stream, or in the midst of unfinished streets here and there ; 
and handsome convents with their gardens, justice-houses, barracks, 
and hospitals adorn the large, poor, bustling, rough-and-ready-looking 
town. A man who sells hunting-whips, gunpowder, guns, fishing- 
tackle, and brass and iron ware, has a few books on his counter; and 
a lady in a by-street, who carries on the profession of a milliner," 
ekes out her stock in a similar way. But there were no regular' 
book-shops that I saw, and when it came on to rain I had no 
resource but the hedge-6chool volumes again. They, like Patrick 
Spelman's sign (which was faithfully copied in the town), present 




some very rude flowers of poetry and " entertainment " of an 
exceedingly humble sort ; but such shelter is not to be despised 
when no better is to be had : nay, possibly its novelty may be piquant 
to some readers, as an admirer of Shakspeare will occasionally con- 
descend to listen to Mr. Punch, or an epicure to content himself 
with a homely dish of beans and bacon. 

When Mr. Kilroy's waiter has drawn the window-curtains, brought 



170 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

the hot-water for the whisky-negus, a pipe and a " screw " of tobacco, 
and two huge old candlesticks that were plated once, the audience 
may be said to be assembled, and after a little overture performed 
on the pipe, the second night's entertainment begins with the historical 
tragedy of the " Battle of Aughrim." 

Though it has found its way to the West of Ireland, the " Battle 
of Aughrim " is evidently by a Protestant author, a great enemy of 
popery and wooden shoes : both of which principles incarnate in 
the person of Saint Ruth, the French General commanding the 
troops sent by Louis XIV. to the aid of James II., meet with a 
woful downfall at the conclusion of the piece. It must have been 
written in the reign of Queen Anne, judging from some loyal com- 
} ^iments which are paid to that sovereign in the play ; which is also 
modelled upon " Cato." 

The " Battle of Aughrim " is written from beginning to end in 
decasyllabic verse of the richest sort ; and introduces us to the chiefs 
of William's and James's armies. On the English side we have Baron 
Ginkell, three Generals, and two Colonels ; on the Irish, Monsieur 
Saint Ruth, two Generals, two Colonels, and an English gentleman 
of fortune, a volunteer, and son of no less a person than Sir Edmund- 
bury Godfrey. 

There are two ladies — Jemima, the Irish Colonel Talbot's 
daughter, in love with Godfrey ; and Lucinda, lady of Colonel 
Herbert, in love with her lord. And the deep nature of the tragedy 
may be imagined when it is stated that Colonel Talbot is killed, 
Colonel Herbert is killed, Sir Charles Godfrey is killed, and Jemima 
commits suicide, as resolved not to survive her adorer. St. Ruth is 
also killed, and the remaining Irish heroes are taken prisoners or 
run away. Among the supernumeraries there is likewise a dreadful 
slaughter. 

The author, however, though a Protestant is an Irishman (there 
are peculiarities in his pronunciation which belong only to that 
nation), and as far as courage goes, he allows the two parties to be 
pretty equal. The scene opens with a martial sound of kettle-drums 
and trumpets in the Irish camp, near Athlone. That town is besieged 
by Ginkell, and Monsieur St. Ruth (despising his enemy with a con- 
fidence often fatal to Generals) meditates an attack on the besiegers' 
lines, if, by any chance, the besieged garrison be not in a condition 
to drive them off. After discoursing on the posture of affairs, and 



IN AN ARM-CHAIR. 171 

letting General Sarsfield and Colonel O'Neil know his hearty 
contempt of the English and their General, all parties, after pro- 
testations of patriotism, indulge in hopes of the downfall of William. 
St. Ruth says he will drive the wolves and lions' cubs away. 
O'Neil declares he scorns the revolution, and, like great Cato, 
smiles at persecution. Sarsfield longs for the day " when our Monks 
and Jesuits shall return, and holy incense on our altars burn." 
When 

"Enter a Post. 

" Post. With important news I from Athlone am sent, 
Be pleased to lead me to the General's tent. 

" Sars. Behold the General there. Your message tell. 

" St. Ruth. Declare your message. Are our friends all well ? 

" Post. Pardon me, sir, the fatal news I bring 
Like vulture's poison every heart shall sting. 
Athlone is lost without your timely aid. 
At six this morning an assault was made, 
When, under shelter of the British cannon, 
Their grenadiers in armour took the Shannon, 
Led by brave Captain Sandys, who with fame 
Plunged to his middle in the rapid stream. 
He led them through, and with undaunted ire 
He gained the bank in spite of all our fire ; 
Being bravely followed by his grenadiers 
Though bullets flew like hail about their ears, 
And by this time they enter uncontrolled. 

' ' St. Ruth. Dare all the force of England be so bold 
T' attempt to storm so brave a town, when I 
With all Hibernia's sons of war am nigh ? 
Return : and if the Britons dare pursue, 
Tell them St. Ruth is near, and that will do. 

" Post. Your aid would do much better than your name. 

" St. Ruth. Bear back this answer, friend, from whence you came. 

[Exit Post." 

The picture of brave Sandys, "who with fame plunged to his 
... . jle in the rapid strame," is not a bad image on the part of the 
Post ; and St. Ruth's reply, " Tell them St. Ruth is near, and 
that will do" characteristic of the vanity of his nation. But 
Sarsfield knows Britons better, and pays a merited compliment to 
their valour : 

" Sars. Send speedy succours and their fate prevent, 
You know not yet what Britons dare attempt. 



172 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

I know the English fortitude is such, 

To boast of nothing, though they hazard much. 

No force on earth their fury can repel, 

Nor would they fly from all the devils in hell." 

Another officer arrives : Athlone is really taken, St. Ruth gives 
orders to retreat to Aughrim, and Sarsfield, in a rage, first challenges 
him, and then vows he will quit the army. " A gleam of horror 
does my vitals damp" says the Frenchman (in a figure of speech 
more remarkable for vigour than logic) : " I fear Lord Lucan has 
forsook the camp ! " But not so : after a momentary indignation, 
Sarsfield returns to his duty, and ere long is reconciled with his vain 
and vacillating chief. 

And now the love-intrigue begins. Godfrey enters, and states 
Sir Charles Godfrey is his lawful name : he is an Englishman, and 
was on his way to join Ginckle's camp, when Jemima's beauty over- 
came him : he asks Colonel Talbot to bestow on him the lady's 
hand. The Colonel consents, and in Act II., on the plain of 
Aughrim, at 5 o'clock in the morning, Jemima enters and proclaims 
her love. The lovers have an interview, which concludes by a 
mutual confession of attachment, and Jemima says, " Here, take my 
hand. 'Tis true the gift is small, but when I can I'll give you heart 
and all." The lines show finely the agitation of the young person. 
She meant to say, Take my heart, but she is longing to be married 
to him, and the words slip out as it were unawares. Godfrey cries 
in raptures — 

" Thanks to the gods ! who such a present gave : 
Such radiant graces ne'er could man receive (resave) ; 
For who on earth has e'er such transports known ? 
What is the Turkish monarch on his throne, 
Hemmed round with rusty swords in pompous state ? 
Amidst his court no joys can be so great. 
Retire with me, my soul, no longer stay 
In public view ! the General moves this way." 

'Tis, indeed, the General; who, reconciled with Sarsfield, straight- 
way, according to his custom, begins to boast about what he will do : 

" Thrice welcome to my heart, thou best of friends ! 
The rock on which our holy faith depends ! 
May this our meeting as a tempest make 
The vast foundations of Britannia shake, 



IN AN ARM-CHAIR. 173 

Tear up their orange plant, and overwhelm 
The strongest bulwarks of the British realm ! 
Then shall the Dutch and Hanoverian fall, 
And James shall ride in triumph to Whitehall ; 
Then to protect our faith he will maintain 
An inquisition here like that in Spain. 

" Sars. Most bravely urged, my lord ! your skill, I own, 
Would be unparalleled — had you saved Athlone." 

— " Had you saved Athlone ! " Sarsfield has him there. And 
the contest of words might have provoked quarrels still more fatal, 
but alarms are heard : the battle begins, and St. Ruth (still confident) 
goes to meet the enemy, exclaiming, " Athlone was sweet, but 
Aughrim shall be sour." The fury of the Irish is redoubled on 
hearing of Talbot's heroic death : the Colonel's corpse is presently 
brought in, and to it enters Jemima, who bewails her loss in the 
following pathetic terms : — 

" Jemima. Oh ! — he is dead ! — my soul is all on fire, 
Witness ye gods ! — he did with fame expire. 
For Liberty a sacrifice was made, 
And fell, like Pompey, by some villains blade. 
There lies a breathless corse, whose soul ne'er knew 
A thought but what was always just and true ; 
Look down from heaven, God of peace and love, 
Waft him with triumph to the throne above ; 
And, O ye winged guardians of the skies ! 
Tune your sweet harps and sing his obsequies ! 

Good friends, stand off whilst I embrace the ground 

Whereon he lies and bathe each mortal wound 

With brinish tears, that like to torrents run 

From these sad eyes. O heavens ! I'm undone. . 

[Falls down on the body. 

" Enter Sir Charles Godfrey. He raises her. 

" Sir Char. Why do these precious eyes like fountains flow, 
To drown the radiant heaven that lies below 1 
Dry up your tears, I trust his soul ere this 
Has reached the mansions of eternal bliss. 
Soldiers ! bear hence the body out of sight. 

[They bear him off. 

' ' Jem. Oh, stay — ye murderers, cease to kill me quite : 

See how he glares ! and see again he flies ! 

The clouds fly open, and he mounts the skies. 
Oh ! see his blood, it shines refulgent bright, 

I see him yet 1 cannot lose him quite, 

But still pursue him on — and — lose my sight." 



174 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

The gradual disappearance of the Colonel's soul is now finely indi- 
cated, and so is her grief : when showing the body to Sir Charles, 
she says, " Behold the mangled cause of all my woes." The sorrow 
of youth, however, is but transitory ; and when her lover bids 
her dry her gushish tears, she takes out her pocket-handkerchief 
with the elasticity of youth, and consoles herself for the father in 
the husband. 

Act III. represents the English camp : Ginckle and his Generals 
discourse ; the armies are engaged. In Act IV. the English are 
worsted in spite of their valour, which Sarsfield greatly describes. 
" View," says he — 

" View how the foe like an impetuous flood 
Breaks through the smoke, the water, and — the mud ! " 

It becomes exceedingly hot. Colonel Earles says — 

" In vain Jove's lightnings issue from the sky, 
For death more sure from British ensigns fly. 
Their messengers of death much blood have spilled, 
And full three hundred of the Irish killed." 

A description of war (Herbert) : — 

' ' Now bloody colours wave in all their pride, 
And each proud hero does his beast bestride.' 1 '' 

General Dorrington's description of the fight is, if possible, still 
more noble : 

" Dor. Haste, noble friends, and save your lives by flight, 
For 'tis but madness if you stand to fight. 
Our cavalry the battle have forsook, 
And death appears in each dejected look ; 
Nothing but dread confusion can be seen, 
For severed heads and trunks o'erspread the green ; 
The fields, the vales, the hills, and vanquished plain, 
For five miles round are covered with the slain. 
Death in each quarter does the eye alarm, 
Here lies a leg, and there a shattered arm. 
There heads appear, which, cloven by mighty bangs, 
And severed quite, on either shoulder hangs : 
This is the awful scene, my lords ! Oh, fly 
The impending danger, for your fate is nigh." 

Which party, however, is to win — the Irish or English ? Their 
heroism is equal, and young Godfrey especially, on the Irish side, 



IN AN ARM-CHAIR. 175 

is carrying all before him — when he is interrupted in the slaughter 
by the ghost of his father : of old Sir Edmundbury, whose monument 
we may see in Westminster Abbey. Sir Charles, at first, doubts 
about the genuineness of this venerable old apparition ; and thus puts 
a case to the ghost : — 

" Were ghosts in heaven, in heaven they there would stay, 
Or if in hell, they could not get away." 

A clincher, certainly, as one would imagine ; but the ghost jumps 
over the horns of the fancied dilemma, by saying that he is not at 
liberty to state where he comes from. 

" Ghost. Where visions rest, or souls imprisoned dwell, 
By heaven's command, we are forbid to tell ; 
But in the obscure grave — where corpse decay, 
Moulder in dust and putrefy away, — 
No rest is there ; for the immortal soul 
Takes its full flight and nutters round the Pole ; 
Sometimes I hover over the Euxine sea — 
From Pole to Sphere, until the judgment day- — 
Over the Thracian Bosphorus do I float, 
And pass the Stygian lake in Charon's boat, 
O'er Vulcan's fiery court and sulph'rous cave, 
And ride like Neptune on a briny wave ; 
List to the blowing noise of Etna's flames, 
And court the shades of Amazonian dames ; 
Then take my flight up to the gleamy moon : 
Thus do I wander till the day of doom. 
Proceed I dare not, or I would unfold 
A horrid tale would make your blood run cold, 
Chill all your nerves and sinews in a trice 
Like whispering rivulets congealed to ice. 

" Sir Char. Ere you depart me, ghost, I here demand 
You'd let me know your last divine command ! " 

The ghost says that the young man must die in the battle ; that 
it will go ill for him if he die in the wrong cause ; and, therefore, 
that he had best go over to the Protestants — which poor Sir Charles 
(not without many sighs for Jemima) consents to do. He goes off 
then, saying — 

" I'll join my countrymen, and yet proclaim 
Nassau's great title to the crimson plain." 

In Act V., that desertion turns the fate of the day. Sarsfield 



i?6 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

enters with his sword drawn, and acknowledges his fate. "Aughrim," 
exclaims Lord Lucan, 

" Aughrim is now no more, St. Ruth is dead, 
And all his guards are from the battle fled. 
As he rode down the hill he met his fall, 
And died a victim to a cannon ball." 

And he bids the Frenchman's body to 



" lie like Pompey in his gore, 

Whose hero's blood encircles the Egyptian shore." 

" Four hundred Irish prisoners we have got," exclaims an English 
General, " and seven thousand lyeth on the spot." In fact, they are 
entirely discomfited, and retreat off the stage altogether ; while, in 
the moment of victory, poor Sir Charles Godfrey enters, wounded to 
death, according to the old gentleman's prophecy. He is racked by 
bitter remorse : he tells his love of his treachery, and declares 
" no crocodile was ever more unjust." His agony increases, the 
" optic nerves grow dim and lose their sight, and all his veins are 
now exhausted quite ; " and he dies in the arms of his Jemima, who 
stabs herself in the usual way. 

And so every one being disposed of, the drums and trumpets 
give a great peal, the audience huzzas, and the curtain falls on 
Ginckle and his friends exclaiming — 

" May all the gods th' auspicious evening bless, 
Who crowns Great Britain's arrums with success ! " 

And questioning the prosody, what Englishman will not join in the 
sentiment ? 

In the interlude the band (the pipe) performs a favourite air. 
Jack the waiter and candle-snuffer looks to see that all is ready ; and 
after the dire business of the tragedy, comes in to sprinkle the stage 
with water (and perhaps a little whisky in it). Thus all things 
being arranged, the audience takes its seat again and the afterpiece 
begins. 

Two of the little yellow volumes purchased at Ennis are entitled 
" The Irish and Hibernian Tales." The former are modern, and 
the latter of an ancient sort ; and so great is the superiority of the 
old stories over the new, in fancy, dramatic interest, and humour, 



THE HIBERNIAN TALES. 177 

that one can't help fancying Hibernia must have been a very 
superior country to Ireland. 

These Hibernian novels, too, are evidently intended for the hedge- 
school universities. They have the old tricks and some of the old 
plots that one has read in many popular legends of almost all coun- 
tries, European and Eastern : successful cunning is the great virtue 
applauded; and the heroes pass through a thousand wild extrava- 
gant dangers, such as could only have been invented when art was 
young and faith was large. And as the honest old author of the 
tales says " they are suited to the meanest as well as the highest 
capacity, tending both to improve the fancy and enrich the mind," 
let us conclude the night's entertainment by reading one or two of 
them, and reposing after the doleful tragedy which has been 
represented. The "Black Thief" is worthy of the Arabian Nights, 
I think, — as wild and odd as an Eastern tale. 

It begins, as usual, with a King and Queen who lived once on a 
time in the South of Ireland, and had three sons ; but the Queen 
being on her death-bed, and fancying her husband might marry 
again, and unwilling that her children should be under the jurisdic- 
tion of any other woman, besought his Majesty to place them in a 
tower at her death, and keep them there safe until the young Princes 
should come of age. 

The Queen dies : the King of course marries again, and the new 
Queen, who bears a son too, hates the offspring of the former mar- 
riage, and looks about for means to destroy them. 

" At length the Queen, having got some business with the hen-wife, 
went herself to her, and after a long conference passed, was taking 
leave of her, when the hen-wife prayed that if ever she should come 
back to her again she might break her neck. The Queen, greatly 
incensed at such a daring insult from one of her meanest subjects, 
to make such a prayer on her, demanded immediately the reason, 
or she would have her put to death. 'It was worth your while, 
madam,' says the hen-wife, ' to pay me well for it, for the reason I 
prayed so on you concerns you much.' ' What must I pay you ? ' 
asked the Queen. ' You must give me,' says she, ' the full of a pack 
of wool: and I have an ancient crock which you must fill with 
butter ; likewise a barrel which you must fill for me full of wheat.' 
' How much wool will it take to the pack ? ' says the Queen. ' It 
will take seven herds of sheep,' said she, 'and their increase for 



178 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

seven years.' ' How much butter will it take to fill your crock ? ' 
' Seven dairies,' said she, and the increase for seven years.' ' And 
how much will it take to fill the barrel you have ? ' says the Queen. 
' It will take the increase of seven barrels of wheat for seven years.' 
• That is a great quantity,' says the Queen, ' but the reason must 
be extraordinary, and before I want it I will give you all you 
demand.' " 

The hen-wife acquaints the Queen with the existence of the three 
sons, and giving her Majesty an enchanted pack of cards, bids her to 
get the young men to play with her with these cards, and on their 
losing, to inflict upon them such a task as must infallibly end in 
their ruin. All young princes are set upon such tasks, and it is a 
sort of opening of the pantomime, before the tricks and activity 
begin. The Queen went home, and " got speaking " to the King " in 
regard of his children, and she broke it off to him in a very polite and 
engaging manner, so that he could see no muster or design in it." The 
King agreed to bring his sons to court, and at night, when the royal 
party " began to sport, and play at all kinds of diversions," the Queen 
cunningly challenged the three Princes to play cards. They lose, 
and she sends them in consequence to bring her back the Knight of 
the Glen's wild steed of bells. 

On their road (as wandering young princes, Indian or Irish, 
always do) they meet with the Black Thief of Sloan, who tells them 
what they must do. But they are caught in the attempt, and brought 
" into that dismal part of the palace where the Knight kept a furnace 
always boiling, in which he threw all offenders that ever came in his 
way, which in a few minutes would entirely consume them. ' Auda- 
cious villains ! ' says the Knight of the Glen, ' how dare you attempt 
so bold an action as to steal my steed ? see now the reward of your 
folly : for your greater punishment, I will not boil you all together, 
but one after the other, so that he that survives may witness the dire 
afflictions of his unfortunate companions.' So saying, he ordered his 
servants to stir up the fire. ' We will boil the eldest-looking of these 
young men first,' says he, ' and so on to the last, which will be this 
old champion with the black cap. He seems to be the captain, and 
looks as if he had come through many toils.' — ' I was as near death 
once as this Prince is yet,' says the Black Thief, ' and escaped : and 
so will he too.' ' No, you never were,' said the Knight, ' for he is 
within two or three minutes of his latter end.' ' But,' says the Black 



THE BLACK THIEF. 179 

Thief, ' I was within one moment of my death, and I am here yet' 
' How was that ? ' says the Knight. ' I would be glad to hear it, for 
it seems to be impossible.' ' If you think, Sir Knight,' says the 
Black Thief, ' that the danger I was in surpassed that of this young 
man, will you pardon him his crime ? ' 'I will,' says the Knight, 
' so go on with your story.' 

" ' I was, sir,' says he, ' a very wild boy in my youth, and came 
through many distresses : once in particular, as I was on my 
rambling, I was benighted, and could find no lodging. At length I 
came to an old kiln, and being much fatigued, I went up and lay on 
the ribs. I had not been long there, when I saw three witches 
coming in with three bags of gold. Each put her bag of gold 
under her head as if to sleep. I heard the one say to the other 
that if the Black Thief came on them while they slept he would not 
leave them a penny. I found by their discourse that everybody 
had got my name into their mouth, though I kept silent as death 
during their discourse. At length they fell fast asleep, and then 
I stole softly down, and seeing some turf convenient, I placed one 
under each of their heads, and off I went with their gold as fast as 
I could. 

" ' I had not gone far,' continued the Thief of Sloan, ' until I saw 
a greyhound, a hare, and a hawk in pursuit of me, and began to 
think it must be the witches that had taken that metamorphosis, in 
order that I might not escape them unseen either by land or water. 
Seeing they did not appear in any formidable shape, I was more 
than once resolved to attack them, thinking that with my broad- 
sword I could easily destroy them. But considering again that it 
was perhaps still in their power to become so. I gave over the 
attempt, and climbed with difficulty up a tree, bringing my sword 
in my hand, and all the gold along with me. However, when they 
came to the tree they found what I had done, and, making further 
use of their hellish art, one of them was changed into a smith's anvil, 
and another into a piece of iron, of which the third one soon made a 
hatchet. Having the hatchet made, she fell to cutting down the 
tree, and in course of an hour it began to shake with me.' " 

This is very good and original. The " boiling " is in the first 
fee-faw-fum style, and the old allusion to "the old champion in the 
black cap " has the real Ogresque humour. Nor is that simple con- 
trivance of the honest witches without its charm : for if, instead of 



i So THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

wasting their time, the one in turning herself into an anvil, the other 
into a piece of iron, and so hammering out a hatchet at considerable 
labour and expense — if either of them had turned herself into a 
hatchet at once, they might have chopped down the Black Thief 
before cock-crow, when they were obliged to fly off and leave him in 
possession of the bags of gold. 

The eldest Prince is ransomed by the Knight of the Glen in 
consequence of this story : and the second Prince escapes on account 
of the merit of a second story ; but the great story of all is of course 
reserved for the youngest Prince. 

" I was one day on my travels," says the Black Thief, " and I 
came into a large forest, where I wandered a long time and could not 
get out of it. At length I came to a large castle, and fatigue obliged 
me to call into the same, where I found a young woman, and a child 
sitting on her knee, and she crying. I asked her what made her cry, 
and where the lord of the castle was, for I wondered greatly that I 
saw no stir of servants or any person about the place. ' It is well 
for you,' says the young woman, ' that the lord of this castte is not 
at home at present ; for he is a monstrous giant, with but one eye on 
his forehead, who lives on human flesh. He brought me this child,' 
says she — ' I do not know where he got it — and ordered me to make it 
into a pie, and I cannot help crying at the command.' I told her 
that if she knew of any place convenient that I could leave the 
child safely, I would do it, rather than that it should be buried in the 
bowels of such a monster. She told of a house a distance off, where 
I would get a woman who would take care of it. ' But what will I 
do in regard of the pie ?' ' Cut a finger off it,' said I, ' and I will 
bring you in a young wild pig out of the forest, which you may dress 
as if it was the child, and put the finger in a certain place, that if the 
giant doubts anything about it, you may know where to turn it over 
at first, and when he sees it he will be fully satisfied that it is made 
of the child.' She agreed to the plan I proposed; and, cutting off 
the child's finger, by her direction I soon had it at the house she 
told me of and brought her the little pig in the place of it. She then 
made ready the pie ; and, after eating and drinking heartily myself, 
I was just taking my leave of the young woman when we observed 
the giant coming through the castle-gates. 'Lord bless me!' said 
she, ' what will you do now ? run away and lie down among the dead 
bodies that he has in the room ' (showing me the place), ' and strip off 



THE BLACK THIEF. 181 

your clothes that he may not know you from the rest if he has 
occasion to go that way.' I took her advice, and laid myself down 
among the rest, as if dead, to see how he would behave. The first 
thing I heard was him calling for his pie. When she set it down 
before him, he swore it smelt like swine's flesh ; but, knowing where 
to find the finger, she immediately turned it up — which fairly con- 
vinced him of the contrary. The pie only served to sharpen his 
appetite, and I heard him sharpen his knife, and saying he must have 
a collop or two, for he was not near satisfied. But what was my 
terror when I heard the giant groping among the bodies, and, 
fancying myself, cut the half of my hip off, and took it with him to 
be roasted. You may be certain I was in great pain; but the fear of 
being killed prevented me from making any complaint. However, 
when he had eat all, he began to drink hot liquors in great 
abundance, so that in a short time he could not hold up his head, 
but threw himself on a large creel he had made for the purpose, and 
fell fast asleep. When ever I heard him snoring, bad as I was, I went 
tip and caused the woman to bind my wound with a handkerchief 
and taking the giant's spit, I reddened it in the fire, and ran it 
through the eye, but was not able to kill him. However, I left the 
spit sticking in his head and took to my heels ; but I soon found he 
was in pursuit of me, although blind ; and, having an enchanted ring, 
he threw it at me, and it fell on my big toe and remained fastened to 
it. The giant then called to the ring, ' Where it was ? ' and to my great 
surprise it made him answer, ' On my foot,' and he, guided by the same, 
made a leap at me — which I had the good luck to observe, and 
fortunately escaped the danger. However, I found running was of 
no use in saving me as long as I had the ring on my foot ; so I took 
my sword and cut off the toe it was fastened on, and threw both into 
a large fish-pond that was convenient. The giant called again to the 
ring, which, by the power of enchantment, always made answer ; but 
he, not knowing what I had done, imagined it was still on some part 
of me, and made a violent leap to seize me — when he went into the 
pond over head and ears and was drowned. Now, Sir Knight," 
said the Thief of Sloan, "you see what dangers I came through and 
always escaped ; but indeed I am lame for want of my toe ever 
since." 

And now remains but one question to be answered, viz. How is 
the Black Thief himself to come off? This difficulty is solved in a 



1 82 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

very dramatic way and with a sudden turn in the narrative that is 
very wild and curious. 

" My lord and master," says an old woman that was listening all 
the time, " that story is but too true, as I well know -.for I am the 7'ery 
woman that ivas in the giant's castle, a?id you, my lord, the child that I 
was to make into a pie; and this is the very man that saved your life, 
which you may know by the want of your finger that was taken off, 
as you have heard, to deceive the giant." 

That fantastical way of bearing testimony to the previous tale, by 
producing an old woman who says the tale is not only true, but she 
was the very old woman who lived in the giant's castle, is almost a 
stroke of genius. It is fine to think that the simple chronicler found 
it necessary to have a proof for his story, and he was no doubt per- 
fectly contented with the proof found. 

" The Knight of the Glen, greatly surprised at what he had heard 
the old woman tell, and knowing he wanted his finger from his child- 
hood, began to understand that the story was true enough. ' And is 
this my dear deliverer ? ' says he. ' O brave fellow, I not only 
pardon you all, but I will keep you with myself while you live ; where 
you shall feast like princes and have every attendance that I have 
myself They all returned thanks on their knees, and the Black 
Thief told him the reason they attempted to steal the steed of bells, 
and the necessity they were under of going home. ' Well,' says the 
Knight of the Glen, ' if that's the case, I bestow you my steed rather 
than this brave fellow should die : so you may go when you please : 
only remember to call and see me betimes, that we may know each 
other well.' They promised they would, and with great joy they set 
off for the King their father's palace, and the Black Thief along with 
them. The wicked Queen was standing all this time on the tower, 
and hearing the bells ringing at a great distance off, knew very well 
it was the Princes coming home, and the steed with them, and 
through spite and vexation precipitated herself from the tower and 
was shattered to pieces. The three Princes lived happy and well 
during their father's reign, always keeping the Black Thief along with 
them ; but how they did after the old King's death is not known." 

Then we come upon a story that exists in many a European 
language — of the man cheating Death ; then to the history of the 
Apprentice Thief, who of course cheated his masters : which, too, is 
an old tale, and may have been told very likely among those Phceni- 



MANUS O'MALAGHAN. 183 

cians who were the fathers of the Hibernians, for whom these tales 
were devised A very curious tale is there concerning Manus 
O'Malaghan and the Fairies: — "In the parish of Ahoghill lived 
Manus O'Malaghan. As he was searching for a calf that had strayed, 
he heard many people talking. Drawing near, he distinctly heard 
them repeating, one after the other, ' Get me a horse, get me a 
horse;' and 'Get me a horse too,' says Manus. Manus was instantly 
mounted on a steed, surrounded with a vast crowd, who galloped off, 
taking poor Manus with them. In a short time they suddenly 
stopped in a large wide street, asking Manus if he knew where he 
was ? ' Faith,' says he, ' I do not.' ' You are in Spain,' said they." 

Here we have again the wild mixture 'of the positive and the 
fanciful. The chronicler is careful to tell us why Manus went out 
searching for a calf, and this positiveness prodigiously increases the 
reader's wonder at the subsequent events. And the question and 
answer of the mysterious horsemen is fine : " Don't you know where 
you are ? In Spain." A vague solution, such as one has of occur- 
rences in dreams sometimes. 

The history of Robin the Blacksmith is full of these strange 
flights of poetry. He is followed about " by a little boy in a green 
jacket," who performs the most wondrous feats of the blacksmith's 
art, as follows : — 

" Robin was asked to do something, who wisely shifted it, saying 
he would be very sorry not to give the honour of the first trick to his 
lordship's smith — at which the latter was called forth to the bellows. 
When the fire was well kindled, to the great surprise of all present, he 
blew a great shower of wheat out of the fire, which fell through all the 
shop. They then demanded of Robin to try what he could do. 
' Pho ! ' said Robin, as if he thought nothing of what was done. 
' Come,' said he to the boy, ' I think I showed you something like 
that' The boy goes then to the bellows and blew out a great flock 
of pigeons, who soon devoured all the grain and then disappeared. 

" The Dublin smith, sorely vexed that such a boy should 
outdo him, goes a second time to the bellows and blew a fine trout 
out of the hearth, who jumped into a little river that was running by 
the shop-door and was seen no more at that time. 

" Robin then said to the boy, ' Come, you must bring us yon 
trout back again, to let the gentlemen see we can do something.' 
Away the boy goes and blew a large otter out of the hearth, who 



1 84 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

immediately leaped into the river and in a short time returned with 
the trout in his mouth, and then disappeared. All present allowed 
that it was a folly to attempt a competition any further." 

The boy in the green jacket was one " of a kind of small beings 
called fairies ; " and not a little does it add to the charm of these wild 
tales to feel, as one reads them, that the writer must have believed 
in his heart a great deal of what he told. You see the tremor as it 
were, and a wild look of the eyes, as the story-teller sits in his nook 
and recites, and peers wistfully round lest the beings he talks of be 
really at hand. 

Let us give a couple of the little tales entire. They are not so 
fanciful as those before mentioned, but of the comic sort, and suited 
to the first kind of capacity mentioned by the author in his preface. 

JDcmafti arrti ijis $.etgpours. 

" Hudden and Dudden and Donald O'Neary were near neigh- 
bours in the barony of Ballinconlig, and ploughed with three bullocks; 
but the two former, envying the present prosperity of the latter, deter- 
mined to kill his bullock to prevent his farm being properly cultivated 
and laboured — that, going back in the world, he might be induced to 
sell his lands, which they meant to get possession of. Poor Donald, 
finding his bullock killed, immediately skinned it, and throwing the 
skin over his shoulder, with the fleshy side out, set off to the next 
town with it, to dispose of it to the best advantage. Going along the 
road a magpie flew on the top of the hide, and began picking it, 
chattering all the time. This bird had been taught to speak and 
imitate the human voice, and Donald, thinking he understood some 
words it was saying, put round his hand and caught hold of it. Having 
got possession of it, he put it under his great-coat, and so went on to the 
town. •• Having sold the hide, he went into an inn to take a dram ; 
and, following the landlady into the cellar, he gave the bird a squeeze, 
which caused it to chatter some broken accents that surprised her 
very much. ' What is that I hear?' said she to Donald : ' I think it 
is talk, and yet I do not understand.' ' Indeed,' said Donald, ' it is 
a bird I have that tells me everything, and I always carry it with me 
to know when there is any danger. Faith,' says he, ' it says you 
have far better liquor than you are giving me.' ' That is strange,' 
said she, going to another cask of better quality, and asking him if 



HUDDEN AND DUD DEN. 1S5 

he would sell the bird. ' I will,' said Donald, ' if I get enough for 
it.' 'I will fill your hat with silver if you will leave it with me.' 
Donald was glad to hear the news, and, taking the silver, set off, 
rejoicing at his good luck. He had not been long home when he 
met with Hudden and Dudden. ' Ha ! ' said he, ' you thought you 
did me a bad turn, but you could not have done me a better : for 
look here what I have got for the hide,' showing them the hatful of 
silver. ' You never saw such a demand for hides in your life as there 
is at present.' Hudden and Dudden that very night killed their 
bullocks, and set out the next morning to sell their hides. On coming 
to the place they went to all the merchants, but could only get 
a trifle for them. At last they had to take what they could get, and 
came home in a great rage and vowing revenge on poor Donald. 
He had a pretty good guess how matters would turn out, and his bed 
being under the kitchen-window, he was afraid they would rob him, 
or perhaps kill him when asleep ; and on that account, when he was 
going to bed, he left his old mother in his bed, and lay down in her 
place, which was in the other side of the house, and they, taking the 
old woman for Donald, choked her in the bed ; but he making some 
noise, they had to retreat and leave the money behind them, which 
grieved them very much. However, by daybreak, Donald got his 
mother on his back, and carried her to town. Stopping at a well, he 
fixed his mother with her staff as if she was stooping for a drink, 
•and then went into a public-house convenient and called for a dram. 
' I wish,' said he to a woman that stood near him, ' you would tell 
my mother to come in. She is at yon well trying to get a drink, and 
she is hard in hearing : if she does not observe you, give her a little 
shake, and tell her that I want her.' The woman called her several 
times, but she seemed to take no notice : at length she went to her 
and shook, her by the arm ; but when she let her go again, she 
tumbled on her head into the well, and, as the woman thought, was 
drowned. She, in great fear and surprise at the accident, told Donald 
what had happened. ' O mercy,' said he, ' what is this ? ' He ran 
and pulled her out of the well, weeping and lamenting all the time, 
and acting in such a manner that you would imagine that he had lost 
his senses. The woman, on the other hand, was far worse than 
Donald : for his grief was only feigned, but she imagined herself to 
be the cause of the old woman's death. The inhabitants of the town, 
hearing what had happened, agreed to make Donald up a good sum 



1 86 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

of money for his loss, as the accident happened in their place ; and 
Donald brought a greater sum home with him than he got for the 
magpie. They buried Donald's mother ; and as soon as he saw 
Hudden and Dudden, he showed them the last purse of money he 
had got. ' You thought to kill me last night,' said he ; ' but it was 
good for me it happened on my mother, for I got all that purse for 
her to make gunpowder.' 

" That very night Hudden and Dudden killed their mothers, and 
the next morning set off with them to town. On coming to the town 
with their burden on their backs, they went up and down crying, 
' Who will buy old wives for gunpowder ? ' so that every one laughed 
at them, and the boys at last clodded them out of the place. They 
then saw the cheat, and vowing revenge on Donald, buried the old 
women and set off in pursuit of him. Coming to his house, they 
found him sitting at his breakfast, and seizing him, put him in a sack, 
and went to drown him in a river at some distance. As they were 
going along the highway they raised a hare, which they saw had but 
three feet, and, throwing off the sack, ran after her, thinking by 
appearance she would be easily taken. In their absence there came 
a drover that way, and hearing Donald singing in the sack, wondered 
greatly what could be the matter. 'What is the reason,' said he, 
' that you are singing, and you confined ? ' ' Oh, I am going to 
heaven,' said Donald : ' and in a short time I expect to be free from 
trouble.' ' Oh, dear,' said the drover, ' what will I give you if you let 
me to your place ? ' ' Indeed I do not know,' said he : ' it would take 
a good sum.' ' I have not much money,' said the drover ; ' but I 
have twenty head of fine cattle, which I will give you to exchange 
places with me.' ' Well, well,' says Donald, ' I don't care if I should : 
loose the sack and I will come out.' In a moment the drover 
liberated him, and went into the sack himself: and Donald drove 
home the fine heifers and left them in his pasture. 

" Hudden and Dudden having caught the hare, returned, and 
getting the sack on one of their backs, carried Donald, as they 
thought, to the river, and threw him in, where he immediately sank. 
They then marched home, intending to take immediate possession 
of Donald's property ; but how great was their surprise, when they 
found him safe at home before them, with such a fine herd of 
cattle, whereas they knew he had none before ? ' Donald,' said they, 
' what is all this ! We thought you were drowned, and yet you are 



THE SPAEMAN. 187 

here before us ? ' ' Ah ! ' said he, ' if I had but help along with me 
when you threw me in, it would have been the best job ever I met 
with ; for of all the sight of cattle and gold that ever was seen, is 
there, and no one to own them ; but I was not able to manage more 
than what you see, and I could show you the spot where you might 
get hundreds.' They both swore they would be his friends, and 
Donald accordingly led them to a very deep part of the river, and 
lifting up a stone, ' Now,' said he, ' watch this,' throwing it into the 
stream. ' There is the very place, and go in, one of you, first, and if 
you want help you have nothing to do but call.' Hudden jumping 
in, and sinking to the bottom, rose up again, and making a bubbling 
noise as those do that are drowning, seemed trying to speak but could 
not. ' What is that he is saying now ?' says Dudden. ' Faith,' says 
Donald, ' he is calling for help — don't you hear him ? Stand 
about,' continued he, running back, ' till I leap in. I know how to do 
better than any of you.' Dudden, to have the advantage of him, 
jumped in off the bank, and was drowned along with Hudden. And 
this was the end of Hudden and Dudden." 

CJjc Spacman. 

" A poor man in the North of Ireland was under the necessity 
of selling his cow to help to support his family. Having sold his 
cow, he went into an inn and called for some liquor. Having drunk 
pretty heartily, he fell asleep, and when he awoke he found he had 
been robbed of his money. Poor Roger was at a loss to know how 
to act ; and, as is often the case, when the landlord found that his 
money was gone, he turned him out of doors. The night was 
extremely dark, and the poor man was compelled to take up his 
lodging in an old uninhabited house at the end of the town. 

" Roger had not remained long here until he was surprised by 
the noise of three men, whom he observed making a hole, and, having 
deposited something therein, closing it carefully up again and then 
going away. The next morning, as Roger was walking towards the 
town, he heard that a cloth-shop had been robbed to a great amount, 
and that a reward of thirty pounds was offered to any person who 
could discover the thieves. This was joyful news to Roger, who 
recollected what he had been witness to the night before. He 
accordingly went to the shop and told the gentleman that for the 



1 88 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

reward he would recover the goods, and secure the robbers, provided 
he got six stout men to attend him. All which was thankfully 
granted him. 

" At night Roger and his men concealed themselves in the old 
house, and in a short time after the robbers came to the spot for the 
purpose of removing their booty ; but they were instantly seized and 
carried into the town prisoners, with the goods. Roger received 
the reward and returned home, well satisfied with his good luck. 
Not many days after, it was noised over the country that this robbery 
was discovered by the help of one of the best Spaemen to be found — 
insomuch that it reached the ears of a worthy gentleman of the 
county of Deny, who made strict inquiry to find him out. Having 
at length discovered his abode, he sent for Roger, and told him he 
was every day losing some valuable article, and as he was famed for 
discovering lost things, if he could find out the same, he should be 
handsomely rewarded. Poor Roger was put to a stand, not knowing 
what answer to make, as he had not the smallest knowledge of the 
like. But recovering himself a little, he resolved to humour the 
joke ; and, thinking he would make a good dinner and some drink 
of it, told the gentleman he would try what he could do, but that he 
must have a room to himself for three hours, during which time 
he must have three bottles of strong ale and his dinner. All which 
the gentleman told him he should have. No sooner was it made 
known that the Spaeman was in the house than the servants were all 
in confusion, wishing to know what would be said. 

" As soon as Roger had taken his dinner, he was shown into an 
elegant room, where the gentleman sent him a quart of ale by the 
butler. No sooner had he set down the ale than Roger said, 
'There comes one of them' (intimating the bargain he had made 
with the gentleman for the three quarts), which the butler took in a 
wrong light and imagined it was himself. He went away in great 
confusion and told his wife. ' Poor fool,' said she, ' the fear makes 
you think it is you he means ; but I will attend in your place, 
and hear what he will say to me.' Accordingly she carried the 
second quart : but no sooner had she opened the door than Roger 
cried, ' There comes two of them.' The woman, no less surprised 
than her husband, told him the Spaeman knew her too. ' And what 
will we do ? ' said he. ' We will be hanged.' ' I will tell you what we 
must do,' said she : ' we must send the groom the next time ; and if he 



THE SPAEMAN. 189 

is known, we must offer him a good sum not to discover on us.' The 
butler went to William and told him the whole story, and that he 
must go next to see what the Spaeman would say to him, telling him at 
the same time what to do in case he was known also. When the hour 
was expired, William was sent with the third quart of ale — which 
when Roger observed, he cried out, ' There is the third and last of 
them ! ' At which the groom changed colour, and told him ' that if he 
would not discover on them, they would show him where the goods 
were all concealed and give him five pounds besides.' Roger, not 
a little surprised at the discovery he had made, told him ' if he 
recovered the goods, he would follow them no further.' 

" By this time the gentleman called Roger to know how he had 
succeeded. He told him ' he could find the goods, but that the thief 
was gone.' ' I will be well satisfied,' said he, ' with the goods, for 
some of them are very valuable.' ' Let the butler come along with 
me, and the whole shall be recovered.' Roger was accordingly con- 
ducted to the back of the stables, where the articles were concealed, — - 
such as silver cups, spoons, bowls, knives, forks, and a variety of 
other articles of great value. 

" When the supposed Spaeman brought back the stolen goods, 
the gentleman was so highly pleased with Roger that he insisted on 
his remaining with him always, as he supposed he would be perfectly 
safe as long as he was about his house. Roger gladly embraced 
the offer, and in a few days took possession of a piece of land 
which the gentleman had given to him in consideration of his great 
abilities. 

" Some time after this the gentleman was relating to a large 
company the discovery Roger had made, and that he could tell 
anything. One of the gentlemen said he would dress a dish of meat, 
and bet fifty pounds that he could not tell what was in it, though he 
would allow him to taste it. The bet being taken and the dish 
dressed, the gentleman sent for Roger and told him the bet that was 
depending on him. Poor Roger did not know what to do ; but at last 
he consented to the trial. The dish being produced, he tasted it, 
but could not tell what it was. At last, seeing he was fairly beat, he 
said, ' Gentlemen, it is folly to talk : the fox may run a while, but he 
is caught at last,' — allowing with himself that he was found out. 
The gentleman that had made the bet then confessed that it was 
a fox he had dressed in the dish : at which they all shouted out in 



190 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



favour of the Spaeman, — particularly his master, who had more con- 
fidence in him than ever. 

"Roger then went home, and so famous did he become, that 
no one dared take anything but what belonged to them, fearing that 
the Spaeman would discover on them." 



And so we shut up the Hedge-school Library, and close the Gal- 
way Nights' Entertainments. They are not quite so genteel as 
Almack's to be sure ; but many a lady who has her opera-box in 
London has listened to a piper in Ireland. 




Apropos of pipers, here is a young one that I caught and copied 
to-day. He was paddling in the mud, shining in the sun careless of 
his rays, and playing his little tin music as happy as Mr. Cooke with 
his oboe. 

Perhaps the above verses and tales are not unlike my little Galway 
musician. They are grotesque and rugged ; but they are pretty and 
innocent-hearted too ; and as such, polite persons may deign to look 
at them for once in a way. While we have Signor Costa in a white 
neckcloth ordering opera-bands to play for us the music of Donizetti, 
which is not only sublime but genteel : of course such poor little 
operatives as he who plays the wind instrument yonder cannot 
expect to be heard often. But is not this Galway ? and how far is 
Galway from the Haymarket ? 



( I9i ) 



CHAPTER XVII. 

FROM GALWAY TO BALLINAHINCH. 

The Clifden car, which carries the Dublin letters into the heart of 
Connemara, conducts the passenger over one of the most wild and 
beautiful districts that it is ever the fortune of a traveller to examine ; 
and I could not help thinking, as we passed through it, at how much 
pains and expense honest English cockneys are to go and look after 
natural beauties far inferior, in countries which, though more distant, 
are not a whit more strange than this one. No doubt, ere long, when 
people know how easy the task is, the rush of London tourism will 
come this way : and I shall be very happy if these pages shall be able 
to awaken in one bosom beating in Tooley Street or the Temple the 
desire to travel towards Ireland next year. 

After leaving the quaint old town behind us, and ascending one 
or two small eminences to the north-westward, the traveller, from the 
car, gets a view of the wide sheet of Lough Corrib shining in the sun, 
as we saw it, with its low dark banks stretching round it. If the view 
is gloomy, at least it is characteristic : nor are we delayed by it very 
long ; for though the lake stretches northwards into the very midst of 
the Joyce country, (and is there in the close neighbourhood of another 
huge lake, Lough Mask, which again is near to another sheet of water,) 
yet from this road henceforth, after keeping company with it for some 
five miles, we only get occasional views of it, passing over hills and 
through trees, by many rivers and smaller lakes, which are dependent 
upon that of Corrib. Gentlemen's seats, on the road from Galway to 
Moycullen, are scattered in great profusion. Perhaps there is grass 
growing on the gravel-walk, and the iron gates of the tumble-down 
old lodges are rather rickety ; but, for all that, the places look com- 
fortable, hospitable, and spacious. As for the shabbiness and want 
of finish here and there, the English eye grows quite accustomed to 
it in a month ; and I find the bad condition of the Galway houses by 
no means so painful as that of-the places near Dublin. At some of 
the lodges, as we pass, the mail-carman, with a warning shout, flings 
a bag of letters. I saw a little party looking at one which lay there 



1 92 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

in the road crying, " Come, take me ! " but nobody cares to steal a bag 
of letters in this country, I suppose, and the carman drove on without 
any alarm. Two days afterwards a gentleman with whom I was in 
company left on a rock his book of fishing-flies ; and I can assure 
you there was a very different feeling expressed about the safety 
of that. 

In the first part of the journey, the neighbourhood of the road 
seemed to be as populous as in other parts of the country : troops 
of red-petticoated peasantry peering from their stone-cabins ; yelling 
children following the car, and crying, " Lash, lash ! " It was Sunday, 
and you would see many a white chapel among the green bare plains 
to the right of the road, the court-yard blackened with a swarm of 
cloaks. The service seems to continue (on the part of the people) 
all day. Troops of people issuing from the chapel met us at Moy- 
cullen ; and ten miles further on, at Oughterard, their devotions did 
not yet seem to be concluded. 

A more beautiful village can scarcely be seen than this. It stands 
upon Lough Corrib, the banks of which are here, for once at least, 
picturesque and romantic : and a pretty river, the Feogh, comes 
rushing over rocks and by woods until it passes the town and meets 
the lake. Some pretty buildings in the village stand on each bank 
of this stream : a Roman Catholic chapel with a curate's neat lodge ; a 
little church on one side of it, a fine court-house of gray stone on 
the other. And here it is that we get into the famous district of 
Connemara, so celebrated in Irish stories, so mysterious to the London 
tourist. " It presents itself," says the Guide-book, " under every 
possible combination of heathy moor, bog, lake, and mountain. 
Extensive mossy plains and wild pastoral valleys lie embosomed 
among the mountains, and support numerous herds of cattle and 
horses, for which the district has been long celebrated. These wild 
solitudes, which occupy by far the greater part of the centre of the 
country, are held by a hardy and ancient race of grazing farmers, who 
live in a very primitive state, and, generally speaking, till little beyond 
what supplies their immediate wants. For the first ten miles the 
country is comparatively open ; and the mountains on the left, which 
are not of great elevation, can be distinctly traced as they rise along 
the edge of the heathy plain. 

" Our road continues along the Feogh river, which expands itself 
into several considerable lakes, and at five miles from Oughterard we 



OUGHTERARD. 193 

reach Lough Bofin, which the road also skirts. Passing in succession 
Lough-a-Preaghan, the lakes of Anderran and Shindella, at ten miles 
from Oughterard we reach Slyme and Lynn's Inn, or Half-way 
House, which is near the shore of Loughonard. Now, as we advance 
towards the group of Binabola, or the Twelve Pins, the most gigantic 
scenery is displayed." 

But the best guide-book that ever was written cannot set the view 
before the mind's eye of the reader, and I won't attempt to pile up 
big words in place of these wild mountains, over which the clouds as 
they passed, or the sunshine as it went and came, cast every variety 
of tint, light, and shadow; nor can it be expected that long, level 
sentences, however smooth and shining, can be made to pass as 
representations of those calm lakes by which we took our way. All 
one can do is to lay down the pen and ruminate, and cry, " Beautiful!" 
once more ; and to the reader say, " Come and see ! " 

Wild and wide as the prospect around us is, it has somehow a 
kindly, friendly look ; differing in this from the fierce loneliness of 
some similar scenes in Wales that I have viewed. Ragged women 
and children come out of rude stone-huts to see the car as it passes. 
But it is impossible for the pencil to give due raggedness to the rags, 
or to convey a certain picturesque mellowness of colour that the 
garments assume. The sexes, with regard to raiment, do not seem to 
be particular. There were many boys on the road in the national 
red petticoat, having no other covering for their lean brown legs. 
As for shoes, the women eschew them almost entirely ; and I saw a 
peasant trudging from mass in a handsome scarlet cloak, a fine blue- 
cloth gown, turned up to show a new lining of the same colour, and 
a petticoat quite white and neat — in a dress of which the cost must 
have been at least 10/. ; and her husband walked in front carrying 
her shoes and stockings. 

The road had conducted us for miles through the vast property 
of the gentleman to whose house I was bound, Mr. Martin, the 
Member for the county; and the last and prettiest part of the journey 
was round the Lake of Ballinahinch, with tall mountains rising imme- 
diately above us on the right, pleasant woody hills on the opposite 
side of the lake, with the roofs of the houses rising above the trees ; 
and in an island in the midst -of the water a ruined old castle cast 
a long white reflection into the blue waters where it lay. A land- 
pirate used to live in that castle, one of the peasants told me, in the 

13 



194 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

time of " Oliver Cromwell." And a fine fastness it was for a robber, 
truly ; for there was no road through these wild countries in his time 
— nay, only thirty years since, this lake was at three days' distance of 
Galway. Then comes the question, What, in a country where there 
were no roads and no travellers, and where the inhabitants have been 
wretchedly poor from time immemorial, — what was there for the land- 
pirate to rob ? But let us not be too curious about times so early as 
those of Oliver Cromwell. I have heard the name many times from 
the Irish peasant, who still has an awe of the grim, resolute Protector. 

The builder of Ballinahinch House has placed it to command a 
view of a pretty melancholy river that runs by it, through many green 
flats and picturesque rocky grounds ; but from the lake it is scarcely 
visible. And so, in like manner, I fear it must remain invisible to the 
reader too, with all its kind inmates, and frank, cordial hospitality ; 
unless he may take a fancy to visit Galway himself, when, as I can 
vouch, a very small pretext will make him enjoy both. 

It will, however, be only a small breach of confidence to say that 
the major-domo of the establishment (who has adopted accurately the 
voice and manner of his master, with a severe dignity of his own 
which is quite original,) ordered me on going to bed " not to move 
in the morning till he called me," at the same time expressing a 
hearty hope that I should " want nothing more that evening." Who 
would dare, after such peremptory orders, not to fall asleep imme- 
diately, and in this way disturb the repose of Mr. J — n M-ll-y ? 

There may be many comparisons drawn between English and 
Irish gentlemen's houses ; but perhaps the* most striking point of 
difference between the two is the immense following of the Irish 
house, such as would make an English housekeeper crazy almost. 
Three comfortable, well-clothed, good-humoured fellows walked down 
with me from the car, persisting in carrying one a bag, another a 
sketching-stool, and so on. Walking about the premises in the morn- 
ing, sundry others were visible in the court-yard and near'the kitchen- 
door. In the grounds a gentleman, by name Mr. Marcus C-rr, began 
discoursing to me regarding the place, the planting, the fish, the 
grouse, and the Master ; being himself, doubtless, one of the irregulars 
of the house. As for maids, there were half-a-score of them skurrying 
about the house; and I am not ashamed to confess that some of them 
were exceedingly good-looking. And if I might venture to say a word 
more, it would be respecting Connemara breakfasts ; but this would 



CLIFDEN. 195 

be an entire and flagrant breach of confidence : and, to be sure, the 
dinners were just as good. 

One of the days of my three days' visit was to be devoted to the 
lakes ; and as a party had been arranged for the second day after my 
arrival, I was glad to take advantage of the society of a gentleman 
staying in the house, and ride with him to the neighbouring town of 
Clifden. 

The ride thither from Ballinahinch is surprisingly beautiful ; and 
as you ascend the high ground from the two or three rude stone-huts 
which face the entrance-gates of the house, there are views of the lakes 
and the surrounding country which the best parts of Killarney do not 
surpass, I think ; although the Connemara lakes do not possess the 
advantage of wood which belongs to the famous Kerry landscape. 

But the cultivation of the country is only in its infancy as yet, and 
it is easy to see how vast its resources are, and what capital and culti- 
vation may do for it. In the green patches among the rocks, and on the 
mountain-sides, wherever crops were grown, they flourished ; plenty 
of natural wood is springing up in various places ; and there is no end 
to what the planter may do, and to what time and care may effect. 
The carriage-road to Clifden is but ten years old : as it has brought 
the means of communication into the country, the commerce will 
doubtless follow it ; and in fact, in going through the whole kingdom, 
one can't but be struck with the idea that not one hundredth part of 
its capabilities are yet brought into action, or even known perhaps, 
and that, by the easy and certain progress of time, Ireland will be poor 
Ireland no longer. 

For instance, we rode by a vast green plain, skirting a lake and 
river, which is now useless almost for pasture, and which a little drain- 
ing will convert into thousands of acres of rich productive land. Streams 
and falls of water dash by everywhere — they have only to utilise this 
water-power for mills and factories — and hard by are some of the finest 
bays in the world, where ships can deliver and receive foreign and 
home produce. At Roundstone especially, where a little town has 
been erected, the bay is said to be unexampled for size, depth, and 
shelter ; and the Government is now, through the rocks and hills on 
their wild shore, cutting a coast-road to Bunown, the most westerly 
part of Connemara, whence there is another good road to Clifden. 
Among the charges which the " Repealers " bring against the Union, 
they should include at least this : they would never have had these 



196 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



roads but for the Union : roads which' are as much at the charge of 
the London tax-payer as of the most ill-used Milesian in Connaught. 

A string of small lakes follow the road to Clifden, with mountains 
on the right of the traveller for the chief part of the way. A few 
figures at work in the bog-lands, a red petticoat passing here and 
there, a goat or two browsing among the stones, or a troop of 
ragged whitey-brown children who came out to gaze at the car, form 
the chief society on the road. The first house at the entrance to 
Clifden is a gigantic poor-house — tall, large, ugly, comfortable ; it 
commands the town, and looks almost as big as every one of the 
houses therein. The town itself is but of a few years' date, and 
seems to thrive in its small way. Clifden Castle is a fine chateau in 
the neighbourhood, and belongs to another owner of immense lands 
in Galway — Mr. D'Arcy. 

Here a drive was proposed along the coast to Bunown, and I was 
glad to see some more of the country, and its character. Nothing 
can be wilder. We passed little lake after lake, lying a few furlongs 
inwards from the shore. There were rocks everywhere, some patches 
of cultivated land here and there, nor was there any want of inhabi- 
tants along this savage coast. There were numerous cottages, if 
cottages they may be called, and women, and above all, children in 
plenty. Here is one of the former — her attitude as she stood 




A COUNTRY HOUSE IN THE FAR WEST. 197 

gazing at the car. To depict the multiplicity of her rags would 
require a month's study. 

At length we came in sight of a half-built edifice which is 
approached by a rocky, dismal, gray road, guarded by two or three 
broken gates, against which rocks and stones were piled, which had 
to be removed to give an entrance to our car. The gates were 
closed so laboriously, I presume, to prevent the egress of a single 
black consumptive pig, far gone in the family-way — a teeming 
skeleton — that was cropping the thin dry grass that grew upon a 
round hill which rises behind this most dismal castle of Bunown. 

If the traveller only seeks for strange sights, this place will repay 
his curiosity. Such a dismal house is not to be seen in all England : 
or, perhaps, such a dismal situation. The sea lies before and behind ; 
and on each side, likewise, are rocks- and copper-coloured meadows, 
by which a few trees have made an attempt to grow. The owner of 
the house had, however, begun to add to it ; and there, unfinished, is 
a whole apparatus of turrets, and staring raw stone and mortar, and 
fresh ruinous carpenters' work. And then the court-yard ! — tumbled- 
down out-houses, staring empty pointed windows, and new-smeared 
plaster cracking from the walls — a black heap of turf, a mouldy pump, 
a wretched old coal-skuttle, emptily sunning itself in the midst of this 
cheerful scene ! There was an old Gorgon who kept the place, and 
who was in perfect unison with it : Venus herself would become 
bearded, blear-eyed, and haggard, if left to be the housekeeper of 
this dreary place. 

In the house was a comfortable parlour, inhabited by the priest 
who has the painful charge of the district. Here were his books and 
his breviaries, bis reading-desk with the cross engraved upon it, and 
his portrait of Daniel O'Connell the Liberator to grace the walls of 
his lonely cell. There was a dead crane hanging at the door on a 
gaff : his red fish-like eyes were staring open, and his eager grinning 
bill. A rifle-ball had passed through his body. And this was doubtless 
the only game about the place ; for we saw the sportsman who 
had killed the bird hunting vainly up the round hill for other 
food for powder. This gentleman had had good sport, he said, 
shooting seals upon a neighbouring island, four of which animals he 
had slain. 

Mounting up the round hill, we had a view of the Sline Lights — 
the .most westerly point in Ireland. 



193 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

Here too was a ruined sort of summer-house, dedicated " Deo 
Hibernle Liberatori." When these lights were put up, I am told 
the proprietor of Bunown was recommended to apply for compensa- 
tion to Parliament, inasmuch as there would be no more wrecks on 
the coast : from which branch of commerce the inhabitants of the 
district used formerly to derive a considerable profit. Between these 
Sline Lights and America nothing lies but the Atlantic. It was 
beautifully blue and bright on this day, and the sky almost cloudless ; 
but I think the brightness only made the scene more dismal, it being 
of that order of beauties which cannot bear the full light, but require 
a cloud or a curtain to set them off to advantage. A pretty story 
was told me by the gentleman who had killed the seals. The place 
where he had been staying for sport was almost as lonely as this 
Bunown, and inhabited by a priest too — a young, lively, well-educated 
man. " When I came here first," the priest said, u I cried for two days: " 
but afterwards he grew to like the place exceedingly, his whole heart 
being directed towards it, his chapel, and his cure. Who would not 
honour such missionaries — the virtues they silently practise, and the 
doctrines they preach? After hearing that story, I think Bunown 
looked not quite so dismal, as it is inhabited, they say, by such 
another character. What a pity it is that John Tuam, in the next 
county of Mayo, could not find such another hermitage to learn 
modesty in, and forget his Graceship, his Lordship, and the sham 
titles by which he sets such store. 

A moon as round and bright as any moon that ever shone, and 
riding in a sky perfectly cloudless, gave us a good promise of a fine 
day for the morrow, which was to be devoted to the lakes in the 
neighbourhood of Ballinahinch : one of which, Lough Ina, is said to 
be of exceeding beauty. But no man can speculate upon Irish 
weather. I have seen a day beginning with torrents of rain that 
looked as if a deluge was at hand, clear up in a few minutes, without 
any reason, and against the prognostications of the glass and all 
other weather-prophets. So in like manner, after the astonishingly 
fine night, there came a villanous dark day : which, however, did not 
set in fairly for rain, until we were an hour on our journey, with a 
couple of stout boatmen rowing us over Ballinahinch Lake. Being, 
however, thus fairly started, the water began to come down, not in 
torrents certainly, but in that steady, creeping, insinuating mist, 
of which we scarce know the luxury in England ; and which, I am 



FLY-FISHING. 199 

bound to say, will wet a man's jacket as satisfactorily as a cataract 
would do. 

It was just such another day as that of the famous stag-hunt at 
Killarney, in a word ; and as, in the first instance, we went to see 
the deer killed, and saw nothing thereof, so, in the second case, we 
went to see the landscape with precisely the same good fortune. The 
mountains covered their modest beauties in impenetrable veils 
of clouds ; and the only consolation to the boat's crew was, that it 
was a remarkably good day for trout-fishing — which amusement 
some people are said to prefer to the examination of landscapes, 
however beautiful. 

O you who laboriously throw flies in English rivers, and catch, at 
the expiration of a hard day's walking, casting, and wading, two or 
three feeble little brown trouts of two or three ounces in weight, how 
would you rejoice to have but an hour's sport in Derryclear or Balli- 
nahinch ; where you have but to cast, and lo ! a big trout springs at 
your fly, and, after making a vain struggling, splashing, and plunging 
for a while, is infallibly landed in the net and thence into the boat. 
The single rod in the boat caught enough fish in an hour to feast 
the crew, consisting of five persons, and the family of a herd of 
Mr. Martin's, who has a pretty cottage on Derryclear Lake, inhabited 
by a cow and its calf, a score of fowls, and I don't know how many 
sons and daughters. 

Having caught enough trout to satisfy any moderate appetite, like 
true sportsmen the gentlemen on board our boat became eager to 
hook a salmon. Had they hooked a few salmon, no doubt they 
would have trolled for whales, or for a mermaid ; one of which finny 
beauties the waterman swore he had seen on the shore of Derryclear — 
he with Jim Mullen being above on a rock, the mermaid on the shore 
directly beneath them, visible to the middle, and as usual " racking 
her hair." It was fair hair, the boatman said ; and he appeared as 
convinced of the existence of the mermaid as he was of the trout just 
landed in the boat. 

In regard of mermaids, there is a gentleman living near Killala 
Bay, whose name was mentioned to me, and who declares solemnly 
that one day, shooting on the sands there, he saw a mermaid, and 
determined to try her with a shot. So he drew the small charge from 
his gun and loaded it with ball — that he always had by him for seal- 
shooting — fired, and hit the mermaid through the breast. The 



200 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

screams and moans of the creature — whose person he describes most 
accurately — were the most horrible, heart-rending noises that he ever, 
he said, heard; and not only were they heard by him, but by 
the fishermen along the coast, who were furiously angry against 

Mr. A n, because, they said, the injury done to the mermaid 

would cause her to drive all the fish away from the bay for years to 
come. 

But we did not, to my disappointment, catch a glimpse of one of 
these interesting beings, nor of the great sea-horse which is said to 
inhabit these waters, nor of any fairies (of whom the stroke-oar, 
Mr. Marcus, told us not to speak, for they didn't like bein' spoken 
of) ; nor even of a salmon, though the fishermen produced the most 
tempting flies. The only animal of any size that was visible we saw 
while lying by a swift black river that comes jumping with innu- 
merable little waves into Derryclear, and where the salmon are 
especially suffered to " stand : " this animal was an eagle — a real wild 
eagle, with grey wings and a white head and belly : it swept round 
us, within gun-shot reach, once or twice, through the leaden sky, and 
then settled on a grey rock and began to scream its shrill, ghastly 
aquiline note. 

The attempts on the salmon having failed, the rain continuing to 
fall steadily, the herd's cottage before named was resorted to : when 
Marcus, the boatman, commenced forthwith to gut the fish, and 
taking down some charred turf-ashes from the blazing fire, on which 
about a hundredweight of potatoes were boiling, he — Marcus — pro- 
ceeded to grill on the floor some of the trout, which we afterwards 
ate with immeasurable satisfaction. They were such trouts as, when 
once tasted, remain for ever in the recollection of a commonly 
grateful mind — rich, flaky, creamy, full of flavour. A Parisian gour- 
mand would have paid ten francs for the smallest cooleen among them; 
and, when transported to his capital, how different in flavour would 
they have been ! — how inferior to what they were as we devoured 
them, fresh from the fresh waters of the lake, and jerked as it were 
from the water to the gridiron ! The world had not had time to spoil 
those innocent beings before they were gobbled up with pepper and 
salt, and missed, no doubt, by their friends. I should like to know 
more of their "set." But enough of this : my feelings overpower me : 
suffice it to say, they were red or salmon trouts — none of your white- 
fleshed brown-skinned river fellows. 



DERRYCLEAR. 201 

When the gentlemen had finished their repast, the boatmen and 
the family set to work upon the ton of potatoes, a number of the 
remaining fish, and a store of other good things; then we all sat 
round the turf-fire in the dark cottage, the rain coming down steadily 
outside, and veiling everything except the shrubs and verdure imme- 
diately about the cottage. The herd, the herd's wife, and a nonde- 
script female friend, two healthy young herdsmen in corduroy rags, 
the herdsman's daughter paddling about with bare feet, a stout black- 
eyed wench with her gown over her head and a red petticoat not quite 
so good as new, the two boatmen, a badger just killed and turned 
inside out, the gentlemen, some hens cackling and flapping about 
among the rafters, a calf in a corner cropping green meat and occa- 
sionally visited by the cow her mamma, formed the society of the 
place. It was rather a strange picture ; but as for about two hours we 
sat there, and maintained an almost unbroken silence, and as there 
was no other amusement but to look at the rain, I began, after the 
enthusiasm of the first half-hour, to think that after all London was 
a bearable place, and that for want of a turf-fire and a bench in 
Connemara, one might put up with a sofa and a newspaper in Pall 
Mall. 

This, however, is according to tastes; and I must say that 
Mr. Marcus betrayed a most bitter contempt for all cockney tastes, 
awkwardness, and ignorance : and very right too. The night, on our 
return home, all of a sudden cleared ; but though the fishermen, 
much to my disgust — at the expression of which, however, the rascals 
only laughed — persisted in making more casts for trout, and trying 
back in the dark upon the spots which we had visited in the morning, 
it appeared the fish had been frightened off by the rain ; and the 
sportsmen met with such indifferent success that at about ten o'clock 
we found ourselves at Ballinahinch. Dinner was served at eleven ; 
and, I believe, there was some whisky-punch afterwards, recom- 
mended medicinally and to prevent the ill effects of the wetting : but 
that is neither here nor there. 

The next day the petty sessions were to be held at Roundstone, 
a little town which has lately sprung up near the noble bay of that 
name. I was glad to see some specimens of Connemara litigatio'n, as 
also to behold at least one thousand beautiful views that lie on .the 
five miles of road between the town and Ballinahinch. Rivers and 
rocks, mountains and sea, green plains and bright skies, how (for the 



202 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

hundred-and-fiftieth time) can pen-and-ink set you down? But if 
Berghem could have seen those blue mountains, and Karel Dujardin 
could have copied some of these green, airy plains, with their brilliant 
little coloured groups of peasants, beggars, horsemen, many an 
Englishman would know Connemara upon canvas as he does Italy 
or Flanders now. 



( 203 ) 



CHAPTER XVIIL 

ROUNDSTONE PETTY SESSIONS. 

" The temple of august Themis," as a Frenchman would call the 
sessions-room at Roundstone, is an apartment of some twelve feet 
square, with a deal table and a couple of chairs for the accommo- 
dation of the magistrates, and a Testament with a paper cross pasted 
on it to be kissed by the witnesses and complainants who frequent 
the court. The law-papers, warrants, &c. are kept on the sessions- 
clerk's bed in an adjoining apartment, which commands a fine view 
of the court-yard — where there is a stack of turf, a pig, and a shed 
beneath which the magistrates' horses were sheltered during the 
sitting. The sessions-clerk is a gentleman " having," as the. phrase 
is here, both the English and Irish languages, and inteq^reting for 
the benefit of the worshipful bench. 

And if the cockney reader supposes that in this remote country 
spot, so wild, so beautiful, so distant from the hum and vice of cities, 
quarrelling is not, and litigation never shows her snaky head, he is 
very much mistaken. From what I saw, I would recommend any 
ingenious young attorney whose merits are not appreciated in the 
metropolis, to make an attempt upon the village of Roundstone ; 
where as yet, I believe, there is no solicitor, and where an immense 
and increasing practice might speedily be secured. Mr. O'Connell, 
who is always crying out " Justice for Ireland," finds strong sup- 
porters among the Roundstonians, whose love of justice for them- 
selves is inordinate. I took down the plots of the five first little 
litigious dramas which were played before Mr. Martin and the stipen- 
diary magistrate. 

Case i. — A boy summoned a young man for beating him so 
severely that he kept his bed for a week, thereby breaking an engage- 
ment with his master, and losing a quarter's wages. 

The defendant stated, in reply, that the plaintiff was engaged — in 
a field through which defendant passed with another person — setting 
two little boys to fight; on which defendant took plaintiff by the 



204 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



collar and turned him out of the field. A witness who was present 
swore that defendant never struck plaintiff at all, nor kicked him, nor 
ill-used him, further than by pushing him out of the field. 

As to the loss of his quarter's wages, the plaintiff ingeniously- 
proved that he had afterwards returned to his master, that he had 
worked out his time, and that he had in fact received already the 
greater part of his hire. Upon which the case was dismissed, the 
defendant quitting court without a stain upon his honour. 

Case 2 was a most piteous and lamentable case of killing a cow. 
The plaintiff stepped forward with many tears and much gesticulation 
to state the fact, and also to declare that she was in danger of her 
life from the defendant's family. 




It appeared on the evidence that a portion of the defendant's 
respectable family are at present undergoing the rewards which the 
law assigns to those who make mistakes in fields with regard to the 
ownership of sheep which sometimes graze there. The defendant's 
father, O'Damon, for having appropriated one of the fleecy bleaters 
of O'Melibceus, was at present passed beyond sea to a country where 
wool, and consequently mutton, is so plentiful, that he will have the 
less temptation. Defendant's' brothers tread the Ixionic wheel for 
the same offence. Plaintiff's son had been the informer in the case : 
hence the feud between the families, the threats on the part of the 
defendant, the murder of the innocent cow. 



ROUNDS TONE PETTY SESSIONS. 205 

But upon investigation of the business, it was discovered, and on 
the plaintiff's own testimony, that the cow had not been killed, nor 
even been injured ; but that the defendant had flung two stones at 
it, which might have inflicted great injury had they hit the animal 
with greater force in the eye or in any delicate place. 

Defendant admitted flinging the stones, but alleged as a reason 
that the cow was trespassing on his grounds ; which plaintiff did not 
seem inclined to deny. Case dismissed. — Defendant retires with 
unblemished honour ; on which his mother steps forward, and lifting 
up her hands with tears and shrieks, calls upon God to witness that 
the defendant's own brother-in-law had sold to her husband the very 
sheep on account of which he had been transported. 

Not wishing probably to doubt the justice of the verdict of an 
Irish jury, the magistrate abruptly put an end to the lamentation and 
oaths of the injured woman by causing her to be sent out of court, 
and called the third cause on. 

This was a case of thrilling interest and a complicated nature, 
involving two actions, which ought each perhaps to have been gone 
into separately, but were taken together. In the first place Timothy 
Horgan brought an action against Patrick Dolan for breach of con- 
tract in not remaining with him for the whole of six months during 
which Dolan had agreed to serve Horgan. Then Dolan brought an 
action against Horgan for not paying him his wages for six months' 
labour done — the wages being two guineas. 

Horgan at once, and with much candour, withdrew his charge 
against Dolan, that the latter had not remained with him for six 
months : nor can I understand to this day why in the first place he 
swore to the charge, and why afterwards he withdrew it. But im- 
mediately advancing another charge against his late servant, he 
pleaded that he had given him a suit of clothes, which should be 
considered as a set-off against part of the money claimed. 

Now such a suit of clothes as poor Dolan had was never seen — 
I will not say merely on an English scarecrow, but on an Irish 
beggar. Strips of rags fell over the honest fellow's great brawny 
chest, and the covering on his big brown legs hung on by a wonder. 
He held out his arms with a grim smile, and told his worship to look 
at the clothes ! The argument was irresistible : Horgan was ordered 
to pay forthwith. He ought to have been made to pay another guinea 
for clothing a fellow-creature in rags so abominable. 



206 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



And now came a case of trespass, in which there was nothing 
interesting but the attitude of the poor woman who trespassed, and 
who meekly acknowledged the fact. She stated, however, that she 
only got over the wall as a short cut home ; but the wall was eight 
feet high, with a ditch too ; and I fear there were cabbages or 
potatoes in the inclosure. They fined her a sixpence, and she could 
not pay it, and went to gaol for three days — where she and her baby 
at any rate will get a meal. 




Last on the list which I took down came a man who will make 
the fortune of the London attorney that I hope is on his way hither : 
a rather old, curly-headed man, with a sly smile perpetually lying on 
his face (the reader may give whatever interpretation he please to the 
"lying"). He comes before the court almost every fortnight, they 
say, with a complaint of one kind or other. His present charge was 
against a man for breaking into his court-yard, and wishing to take 
possession of the same. It appeared that he, the defendant, and 
another lived in a row of houses : the plaintiff's house was, however, 
first built ; and as his agreement specified that the plot of ground 
behind his house should be his likewise, he chose to imagine that 
the plot of ground behind all the three houses was his, and built his 
turf-stack against his neighbour's window. The magistrates of 
course pronounced against this ingenious discoverer of wrongs, and 



JUSTICE FOR IRELAND. 207 

he left the court still smiling and twisting round his little wicked 
eyes, and declaring solemnly that he would put in an appale. 
If one could have purchased a kicking at a moderate price off 
that fellow's back, it would have been a pleasant little piece of 
self-indulgence, and I confess I longed to ask him the price of 
the article. 

And so, after a few more such great cases, the court rose, and I 
had leisure to make moral reflections, if so minded : sighing to 
think that cruelty and falsehood, selfishness and rapacity, dwell not 
in crowds alone, but flourish all the world over — sweet flowers of 
human nature, they bloom in all climates and seasons, and are just 
as much at home in a hot house in Thavies' Inn as on a lone 
mountain or a rocky sea-coast in Ireland, where never a tree will 
grow ! 

We walked along this coast, after the judicial proceedings were 
over, to see the country, and the new road that the Board of Works 
is forming. Such a wilderness of rocks I never saw ! The district for 
miles is covered with huge stones, shining white in patches of green, 
with the Binabola on one side of the spectator, and the Atlantic 
running in and out of a thousand little bays on the other. The 
country is very hilly, or wavy rather, being a sort of ocean petrified ; 
and the engineers have hard work with these numerous abrupt little 
ascents and descents, which they equalize as best they may — by 
blasting, cutting, filling cavities, and levelling eminences. Some 
hundreds of men were employed at this work, busy with their 
hand-barrows, their picking and boring. Their pay is eighteen- 
pence a day. 

There is little to see in the town of Roundstone, except a Presby- 
terian chapel in process of erection — that seems big enough to accom- 
modate the Presbyterians of the county — and a sort of lay convent, 
being a community of brothers of the third order of Saint Francis. 
They are all artisans and workmen, taking no vows, but living 
together in common, and undergoing a certain religious regimen. 
Their work is said to be very good, and all are employed upon some 
labour or other. On the front of this unpretending little dwelling is 
an inscription with a great deal of pretence, stating that the esta- 
blishment was founded with the approbation of " His Grace the Most 
Reverend the Lord Archbishop of Tuam." 

The Most Reverend Dr. Mac Hale is a clergyman of great learn- 



208 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

ing, talents, and honesty, but his Grace the Lord Archbishop of Tuam 
strikes me as being no better than a mountebank ; and some day I 
hope even his own party will laugh this humbug down. It is bad 

enough to be awed by big titles at all ; but to respect sham ones ! 

O stars and garters ! We shall have his Grace the Lord Chief 
Rabbi next, or his Lordship the Arch-Imaum ! 



( 209 ) 



CHAPTER XIX. 

CLIFDEN TO WESTPORT. 

On leaving Ballinahinch (with sincere regret, as any lonely tourist 
may imagine, who is called upon to quit the hospitable friendliness of 
such a place and society), my way lay back to Clifden again, and 
thence through the Joyce country, by the Killery mountains, to West- 
port in Mayo. The road, amounting in all to four-and-forty Irish 
miles, is performed in cars, in different periods of time, according to 
your horse and your luck. Sometimes, both being bad, the traveller 
is two days on the road ; sometimes a dozen hours will suffice for the 
journey — which was the case with me, though I confess to having 
found the twelve hours long enough. After leaving Clifden, the 
friendly look of the country seemed to vanish ; and though pic- 
turesque enough, was a thought too wild and dismal for eyes 
accustomed to admire a hop-garden in Kent, or a view of rich 
meadows in Surrey, with a clump of trees and a comfortable village 
spire. " Inglis," the Guide-book says, " compares the scenes to the 
Norwegian Fiords." Well, the Norwegian Fiords must, in this case, 
be very dismal sights ! and I own that the wildness of Hampstead 
Heath (with the imposing walls of "Jack Straw's Castle" rising 
stern in the midst of the green wilderness) is more to my taste than 
the general views of yesterday. 

We skirted by lake after lake, lying lonely in the midst of lonely 
boglands, or bathing the sides of mountains robed in sombre rifle 
green. Two or three men, and as many huts, you see in the course 
of each mile perhaps, as toiling up the bleak hills, or jingling more 
rapidly down them, you pass through this sad region. In the midst 
of the wilderness a chapel stands here and there, solitary, on the hill- 
side ; or a ruinous, useless school-house, its pale walls contrasting 
with the general surrounding hue of sombre purple and green. But 
though the country looks more dismal than Connemara, it is clearly 
more fertile : we passed mile's of ground that evidently wanted but 
little cultivation to make them profitable ; and along the mountain- 

M 



2io THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

sides, in many places, and over a great extent of Mr. Blake's country 
especially, the hills were covered with a thick natural plantation, 
that may yield a little brushwood now, but might in fifty years' time 
bring thousands of pounds of revenue to the descendants of the 
Blakes. This spectacle of a country going to waste is enough to 
make the cheerfullest landscape look dismal : it gives this wild 
district a woful look indeed. The names of the lakes by which we 
came I noted down in a pocket-book as we passed along ; but the 
names were Irish, the car was rattling, and the only name readable 
in the catalogue is Letterfrack. 

The little hamlet of Leenane is at twerjty miles' distance from 
Clifden ; and to arrive at it, you skirt the mountain along one side of 
a vast pass, through which the ocean runs from Killery Bay, sepa- 
rating the mountains of Mayo from the mountains of Galway. 
Nothing can be more grand and gloomy than this pass ; and as for 
the character of the scenery, it must, as the Guide-book says, " be 
seen to be understood." Meanwhile, let the reader imagine huge 
dark mountains in their accustomed livery of purple and green, a dull 
gray sky above them, an estuary silver-bright below : in the water 
lies a fisherman's boat or two ; a pair of seagulls undulating with the 
little waves of the water ; a pair of curlews wheeling overhead and 
piping on the wing ; and on the hill-side a jingling car, with a cockney 
in it, oppressed by and yet admiring all these things. Many a 
sketcher and tourist, as I found, has visited this picturesque spot : 
for the hostess of the inn had stories of English and American 
painters, and of illustrious book-writers too, travelling in the service 
of our Lords of Paternoster Row. 

The landlord's son of Clifden, a very intelligent young fellow, 
was here exchanged for a new carman in the person of a raw Irisher 
of twenty years of age, " having " little English, and dressed in that 
very pair of pantaloons which Humphrey Clinker was compelled to 
cast off some years since on account of the offence which they gave 
to Mrs. Tabitha Bramble. This fellow, emerging from among the 
boats, went off to a field to seek for the black horse, which the land- 
lady assured me was quite fresh and had not been out all day, and 
would carry me to Westport in three hours. Meanwhile I was lodged 
in a neat little parlour, surveying the Mayo - side of the water, with 
some cultivated fields and a show of a village at the spot where the 
estuary ends, and above them lodges and fine dark plantations 



LEENANE. 



211 



climbing over the dark hills that lead to Lord Sligo's seat of Delphi. 
Presently, with a curtsey, came a young woman who sold worsted 
socks at a shilling a pair, and whose portrait is here given. 




It required no small pains to entice this rustic beauty to stand 
while a sketch should be made of her. Nor did any compliments or 
cajolements, on my part or the landlady's, bring about the matter : it 
was not until money was offered that the lovely creature consented. 
I offered (such is the ardour of the real artist) either to give her six- 
pence, or to purchase two pairs of her socks, if she would stand still 
for five minutes. On which she said she would prefer selling the socks. 
Then she stood still for a moment in the corner of the room ; then she 
turned her face towards the corner and the other part of her person 
towards the artist, and exclaimed in that attitude, " I must have a 
shilling more." Then I told her to go to the deuce. Then she made 
a proposition, involving the stockings and sixpence, which was 
similarly rejected ; and, finally, the above splendid design was com- 
pleted at the price first stated. 

However, as we went off,, this timid little dove barred the door 
for a moment, and said that "I ought to give her another shilling; 
that a gentleman would give her another shilling," and so on. She 



212 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

might have trod the London streets for ten years and not have been 
more impudent and more greedy. 

By this time the famous fresh horse was produced, and the driver, 
by means of a wraprascal, had covered a great part of the rags of 
his lower garment. He carried a whip and a stick, the former lying 
across his knees ornamentally, the latter being for service ; and as his 
feet were directly under the horse's tail, he had full command of the 
brute's back, and belaboured it for six hours without ceasing. 

What little English the fellow knew he uttered with a howl, roaring 
into my ear answers — which, for the most part, were wrong — to various 
questions put to him. The lad's voice was so hideous, that I asked 
him if he could sing ; on which forthwith he began yelling a most 
horrible Irish ditty — of which he told me the title, that I have forgotten. 
He sang three stanzas, certainly keeping a kind of tune, and the latter 
lines of each verse were in rhyme ; but when I asked him the meaning 
of the song, he only roared out its Irish title. 

On questioning the driver further, it turned out that the horse, 
warranted fresh, had already performed a journey of eighteen miles 
that morning, and the consequence was that I had full leisure to 
survey the country through which we passed. There were more lakes, 
more mountains, more bog, and an excellent road through this lonely 
district, though few only of the human race enlivened it. At ten 
miles from Leenane, we stopped at a road-side hut, where the driver 
pulled out a bag of oats, and borrowing an iron pot from the good 
people, half filled it with corn, which the poor tired, galled, bewhipped 
black horse began eagerly to devour. The young charioteer himself 
hinted very broadly his desire for a glass of whisky, which was the 
only kind of refreshment that this remote house of entertainment 
supplied. 

In the various cabins I have entered, I have found talking a vain 
matter : the people are suspicious of the stranger within their wretched 
gates, and are shy, sly, and silent. I have, commonly, only been 
able to get half-answers in reply to my questions, given in a manner 
that seemed plainly to intimate that the visit was unwelcome. In 
this rude hostel, however, the landlord was a little less reserved, 
offered a seat at the turf-fire, where a painter might have had a good 
subject for his skill. There was no chimney, but a hole in the roof, 
up which a small portion of the smoke ascended (the rest preferring 
an egress by the door, or else to remain in the apartment altogether) ; 



THE BAITING-HOUSE. 213 

and this light from above lighted up as rude a set of figures as ever 
were seen. There were two brown women with black eyes and 
locks, the one knitting stockings on the floor, the other " racking " 
(with that natural comb which five horny fingers supply) the elf-locks 
of a dirty urchin between her knees. An idle fellow was smoking 
his pipe by the fire ; and by his side sat a stranger, who had been 
made welcome to the shelter of the place — a sickly, well-looking man, 
whom I mistook for a deserter at first, for he had evidently been a 
soldier. 

But there was nothing so romantic as desertion in his history. 
He had been in the Dragoons, but his mother had purchased his 
discharge : he was married, and had lived comfortably in Cork for 
some time, in the glass-blowing business. Trade failing at Cork, he 
had gone to Belfast to seek for work. There was no work at Belfast ; 
and he was so far on his road home again : sick, without a penny in 
the world, a hundred and fifty miles to travel, and a starving wife and 
children to receive him at his journey's end. He had been thrown 
off a caravan that day, and had almost broken his back in the fall. 
Here was a cheering story ! I wonder where he is now : how far has 
the poor starving lonely man advanced over that weary desolate 
road, that in good health, and with a horse to carry me, I thought it 
a penalty to cross ? What would one do under such circumstances, 
with solitude and hunger for present company, despair and starvation 
at the end of the vista ? There are a score of lonely lakes along the 
road which he has to pass : would it be well to stop at one of them, 
and fling into it the wretched load of cares which that poor broken 
back has to carry ? Would the world he would light on then be worse 
for him than that he is pining in now ? Heaven help us ! and on 
this very day, throughout the three kingdoms, there are a million 
such stories to be told ! Who dare doubt of heaven after that ? of a 
place where there is at last a welcome to the heart-stricken prodigal 
and a happy home to the wretched ? 

The crumbs of oats which fell from the mouth of the feasting Dives 
of a horse were battled for outside the door by a dozen Lazaruses 
in the shape of fowls ; and a lanky young pig, who had been grunting 
in an old chest in the cabin, or in a miserable recess of huddled rags 
and straw which formed the couch of the family, presently came out 
and drove the poultry away, picking up, with great accuracy, the 
solitary grains lying about, and more than once trying to shove his 



214 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

snout into the corn-pot, and share with the wretched old galled horse. 
Whether it was that he was refreshed by his meal, or that the car-boy 
was invigorated by his glass of whisky, or inflamed by the sight of 
eighteenpence — which munificent sum was tendered to the soldier — I 
don't know ; but the remaining eight miles of the journey were got 
over in much quicker time, although the road was exceedingly bad 
and hilly for the greatest part of the way to Westport. However, by 
running up the hills at the pony's side, the animal, fired with emu- 
lation, trotted up them too — descending them with the proverbial 
surefootedness of his race, the car and he bouncing over the rocks 
and stones at the rate of at least four Irish miles an hour. 

At about five miles from Westport the cultivation became much 
more frequent. There were plantations upon the hills, yellow corn 
and potatoes in plenty in the fields, and houses thickly scattered. 
We had the satisfaction, too, of knowing that future tourists will have 
an excellent road to travel over in this district : for by the side of the 
old road, which runs up and down a hundred little rocky steeps, 
according to the ancient plan, you see a new one running for several 
miles, — the latter way being conducted, not over the hills, but around 
them, and, considering the circumstances of the country, extremely 
broad and even. The car-boy presently yelled out " Reek, Reek ! " 
with a shriek perfectly appalling. This howl was to signify that we 
were in sight of that famous conical mountain so named, and from 
which St. Patrick, after inveigling thither all the venomous reptiles 
in Ireland, precipitated the whole noisome race into Clew Bay. The 
road also for several miles was covered with people, who were 
flocking in hundreds from Westport market, in cars and carts, on 
horseback single and double, and on foot. 

And presently, from an eminence, I caught sight not only of a 
fine view, but of the most beautiful view I ever saw in the world, I 
think; and to enjoy the splendour of which I would travel a hundred 
miles in that car with that very horse and driver. The sun was just 
about to set, and the country round about and to the east was almost 
in twilight. The mountains were tumbled about in a thousand 
fantastic ways, and swarming with people. Trees, corn-fields, 
cottages, made the scene indescribably cheerful; noble woods stretched 
towards the sea, and abutting on them, between two highlands, lay 
the smoking town. Hard by was a large Gothic building — it is but 
a poor-house ; but it looked like a grand castle in the gray evening. 



CLEW BAY. 215 

But the Bay — and the Reek which sweeps down to the sea — and a 
hundred islands in it, were dressed up in gold and purple and 
crimson, with the whole cloudy west in a flame. Wonderful, wonder- 
ful !. . The valleys in the road to Leenane have lost all glimpses of 
the sun ere this ; and I suppose there is not a soul to be seen in the 
black landscape, or by the shores of the ghastly lakes, where the poor 
glass-blower from the whisky-shop is faintly travelling now. 






216 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XX. 

WESTPORT. 

Nature has done much for this pretty town of Westport ; and after 
Nature, the traveller ought to be thankful to Lord Sligo, who has 
done a great deal too. In the first place, he has established one of 
the prettiest, comfortablest inns in Ireland, in the best part of his 
little town, stocking the cellars with good wines, filling the house 
with neat furniture, and lending, it is said, the whole to a landlord 
gratis, on condition that he should keep the house warm, and furnish 
the larder, and entertain the traveller. Secondly, Lord Sligo has 
given up, for the use of the townspeople, a beautiful little pleasure- 
ground about his house. " You may depand upon it," said a Scotch- 
man at the inn, " that they've right of pathway through the groonds, 
and that the marquess couldn't shut them oot." Which is a pretty 
fair specimen of charity in this world — this kind world, that is always 
ready to encourage and applaud good actions, and find good motives 
for the same. I wonder how much would induce that Scotchman to 
allow poor people to walk in his park, if he had one ! 

In the midst of this pleasure-ground, and surrounded by a 
thousand fine trees, dressed up in all sorts of verdure, stands a pretty 
little church ; paths through the wood lead pleasantly down to the 
bay ; and, as we walked down to it on the day after our arrival, one 
of the green fields was suddenly black with rooks, making a huge 
cawing and clanging as they settled down to feed. The house, a 
handsome massive structure, must command noble views of the bay, 
over which all the colours of Titian were spread as the sun set 
behind its purple islands. 

Printer's ink will not give these wonderful hues ; and the reader 
will make his picture at. his leisure. That conical mountain to the 
left is Croaghpatrick : it is clothed in the most magnificent violet- 
colour, and a couple of round clouds were exploding as it were from 
the summit, that part of them towards the sea lighted up with the 
most delicate gold and rose colour. In the centre is the Clare Island, 



WESTFORT. 217 

of which the edges were bright cobalt, whilst the middle was lighted 
up with a brilliant scarlet tinge, such as I would have laughed at in a 
picture, never having seen in nature before, but looked at now with 
wonder and pleasure until the hue disappeared as the sun went away. 
The islands in the bay (which was of a gold colour) looked like so 
many dolphins and whales basking there. The rich park-woods 
stretched down to the shore ; and the immediate foreground consisted 
of a yellow corn-field, whereon stood innumerable shocks of corn, 
casting immense long purple shadows over the stubble. The farmer, 
with some little ones about him, was superintending his reapers ; and 
I heard him say to a little girl, " Norey, I love you the best of all my 
children ! " Presently, one of the reapers coming up, says, " It's 
always the custom in these parts to ask strange gentlemen to give 
something to drink the first day of reaping ; and we'd like to drink 
your honour's health in a bowl of coffee." O fortunatos nimium ! 
The cockney takes out sixpence, and thinks that he never passed 
such a pleasant half-hour in all his- life as in that corn-field, looking at 
that wonderful bay. 

A car which I had ordered presently joined 'me from the town, 
and going down a green lane very like England, and across a cause- 
way near a building where the carman proposed to show me "me 
' lard's caffin that he brought from Rome, and a mighty big caffin 
entirely," we came close upon the water and the port. There was a 
long handsome pier (which, no doubt, remains at this present 
minute), and one solitary cutter lying alongside it ; which may or may 
not be there now. There were about three boats lying near the 
cutter, and six sailors, with long shadows, lolling about the pier. 
As for the warehouses, they are enormous ; and might accommodate, 
I should think, not only the trade of Westport, but of Manchester 
too. There are huge streets of these houses, ten storeys high, with 
cranes, owners' names, &c, marked Wine Stores, Flour Stores, 
Bonded Tobacco Warehouses, and so forth. The six sailors that 
were singing on the pier no doubt are each admirals of as many 
fleets of a hundred sail that bring wines and tobacco from all 
quarters of the world to fill these enormous warehouses. These 
dismal mausoleums, as vast as pyramids, are the places where the 
dead trade of Westport lies buried — a trade that, in its lifetime, 
probably was about as big as a mouse. Nor is this the first nor the 
hundredth place to be seen in this country, which sanguine builders 



218 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

have erected to accommodate an imaginary commerce. Mill-owners 
over-mill themselves, merchants over-warehouse themselves, squires 
over-castle themselves, little tradesmen about Dublin and the cities 
over-villa and over-gig themselves, and we hear sad tales about 
hereditary bondage and the accursed tyranny of England. 

Passing out of this dreary, pseudo-commercial port, the road lay 
along the beautiful shores of Clew Bay, adorned with many a rickety 
villa and pleasure-house, from the cracked windows of which may be 
seen one of the noblest views in the world. One of the villas the 
guide pointed out with peculiar exultation : it is called by a grand 
name — Waterloo Park, and has a lodge, and a gate, and a field of a 
couple of acres, and belongs to a young gentleman who, being able 
to -write Waterloo Park on his card, succeeded in carrying off a young 
London heiress with a hundred thousand pounds. The young couple 
had just arrived, and one of them must have been rather astonished, 
no doubt, at the " park." But what will not love do ? With love 
and a hundred thousand pounds, a cottage may be made to look like 
a castle, and a park of two acres may be brought to extend for a mile. 
The night began now to fall, wrapping up in a sober gray livery the 
bay and mountains, which had just been so gorgeous in sunset ; and 
we turned our backs presently upon the bay, and the villas with the 
cracked windows, and scaling a road of perpetual ups and downs, 
went back to Westport. On the way was a pretty cemetery, lying on 
each side of the road, with a ruined chapel for the ornament of one 
division, a holy well for the other. In the holy well lives a sacred 
trout, whom sick people come to consult, and who operates great 
cures in the neighbourhood. If the patient sees the trout floating on 
his back, he dies ; if on his belly, he lives ; or vice versd. The little 
spot is old, ivy-grown, and picturesque, and I can't fancy a better 
place for a pilgrim to kneel and say his beads at. 

But considering the whole country goes to mass, and that the 
priests can govern it as they will, teaching what shall be believed 
and what shall be not credited, would it not be well for their 
reverences, in the year eighteen hundred and forty-two, to discourage 
these absurd lies and' superstitions, and teach some simple truths 
to their flock ? Leave such figments to magazine -writers and 
ballad-makers ; but, corbleu ! it makes one indignant to think that 
people in the United Kingdom, where a press is at work and good 
sense is abroad, and clergymen are eager to educate the people, 



A SERMON ON SERMONS. 219 

' 'sHoTlld countenance such savage superstitions and silly, grovelling 
heathenisms. 

The chapel is before the inn where I resided, and*on Sunday, 
from a very early hour, the side of the street was thronged with 
worshippers, who came to attend the various services. Nor are the 
Catholics the only devout people of this remote district. There is a 
large Presbyterian church very well attended, as was the Established 
Church service in the pretty church in the park. There was no 
organ, but the clerk and a choir of children sang hymns sweetly and 
truly ; and a chawty sermon being preached for the benefit of the 
diocesan schools, I saw many pound-notes in the plate, showing 
that the Protestants here were as ardent as their Roman Catholic 
brethren. The sermon was extempore, as usual, according to the 
prevailing taste here. The preacher by putting aside his sermon- 
book may gain in warmth, which we don't want, but lose in reason, 
which we do. If I were Defender of the Faith, I would issue an 
order to all priests and deacons to take to the book again ; weighing 
well, before they uttered it, every word they proposed to say upon so 
great a subject as that of religion ; and mistrusting that dangerous 
facility given by active jaws and a hot imagination. Reverend 
divines have adopted this habit, and keep us for an hour listening to 
what might well be told in ten minutes. They are wondrously fluent, 
considering all things ; and though I have heard many a sentence 
begun whereof the speaker did not evidently know the conclusion, 
yet, somehow or other, he has always managed to get through the 
paragraph without any hiatus, except perhaps in the sense. And as 
far as I can remark, it is not calm, plain, downright preachers who 
preserve the extemporaneous system for the most part, but pompous 
orators, indulging in all the cheap graces of rhetoric — exaggerating 
words and feelings to make effect, and dealing in pious caricature. 
Church-goers become excited by this loud talk and captivating 
manner, and can't go back afterwards to a sober discourse read out 
of a grave old sermon-book, appealing to the reason and the gentle 
feelings, instead of to the passions and the imagination. Beware of 
too much talk, O parsons ! If a man is to give an account of every 
idle word he utters, for what a number of such loud nothings, windy 
emphatic tropes and metaphors, spoken, not for God's glory, but the 
preacher's, will many a cushion-thumper have to answer ! And this 
rebuke may properly find a place here, because the clergyman by 



220 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

whose discourse it was elicited is not of the eloquent dramatic sort, 
but a gentleman, it is said, remarkable for old-fashioned learning and 
quiet habits, that do not seem to be to the taste of the many 
boisterous young clergy of the present day. 

The Catholic chapel was built before their graces the most 
reverend lord archbishops came into fashion. It is large and 
gloomy, with one or two attempts at ornament by way of pictures at 
the altars, and a good inscription warning the in-comer, in a few bold 
words, of the sacredness'of the place he stands in. Bare feet bore 
away thousands of people who came to pray there : there were 
numbers of smart equipages for the richer Protestant congregation. 
Strolling about the town in the balmy summer evening, I heard the 
sweet tones of a hymn from the people in the Presbyterian praying- 
house. Indeed, the country is full of piety, and a warm, sincere, 
undoubting devotion. 

On week-days the street before the chapel is scarcely less crowded 
than on the Sabbath : but it is with women and children merely ; for 
a stream bordered with lime-trees runs pleasantly down the street, 
and hither come innumerable girls to wash, while the children make 
dirt-pies and look on. Wilkie was here some years since, and the 
place affords a great deal of amusement to the painter of character. 
Sketching, tant bien que ma/, the bridge and the trees, and some 
of the nymphs engaged in the stream, the writer became an object 
of no small attention ; and at least a score of dirty brats left their 
dirt-pies to look on, the bare-legged washing-girls grinning from 
the water. 




SKETCHING. 22 1 

One, a regular rustic beauty, whose face and figure would have 
made the fortune of a frontispiece, seemed particularly amused and 
aga$ante; and I walked round to get a drawing of her fresh jolly 
face : but directly I came near she pulled her gown over her head, 
and resolutely turned round her back ; and, as that part of her person 
did not seem to differ in character from the backs of the rest of 
Europe, there is no need of taking its likeness. 



222 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

THE PATTERN AT CROAGHPATRICK. 

On the Pattern day, however, the washerwomen and children had 
all disappeared — nay, the stream, too, seemed to be gone out of 
town. There was a report current, also, that on the occasion of the 
Pattern, six hundred teetotallers had sworn to revolt ; and I fear that 
it was the hope of witnessing this awful rebellion which induced me 
to stay a couple of days at Westport. The Pattern was commenced 
on the Sunday, and the priests going up to the mountain took care 
that there should be no sports nor dancing on that day ; but that the 
people should only content themselves with the performance of what 
are called religious duties. Religious duties ! Heaven help us ! If 
these reverend gentlemen were worshippers of Moloch or Baal, or 
any deity whose honour demanded bloodshed, and savage rites, and 
degradation, and torture, one might fancy them encouraging the 
people to the disgusting penances the poor things here perform. But 
it's too hard to think that in our days any priests of any religion 
should be found superintending such a hideous series of self-sacrifices 
as are, it appears, performed on this hill. 

A friend who ascended the hill brought down the following 
account of it. The ascent is a very steep and hard one, he says ; 
but it was performed in company of thousands of people who were 
making their way barefoot to the several " stations " upon the hill. 

" The first station consists of one heap of stones, round which 
they must walk seven times, casting a stone on the heap each time, 
and before and after every stone's throw saying a prayer. 

" The second station is on the top of the mountain. Here there 
is a great altar — a shapeless heap of stones. The poor wretches 
crawl on their knees into this place, say fifteen prayers, and after going 
round the entire top of the mountain fifteen times, say fifteen 
prayers again. 

" The third station is near the bottom of the mountain at the 
further side from Westport. It consists of three heaps. The 
penitents must go seven times round these collectively, and seven 



THE PATTERN. 223 

times afterwards round each individually, saying a prayer before and 
after each progress." 

My informant describes the people as coming away from this 
" frightful exhibition suffering severe pain, wounded and bleeding in 
the knees and feet, and some of the women shrieking with the pain 
of their wounds." Fancy thousands of these bent upon their work, 
and priests standing by to encourage them ! — For shame, for shame. 
If all the popes, cardinals, bishops, hermits, priests, and deacons 
that ever lived were to come forward and preach this as a truth — 
that to please God you must macerate your body, that the sight 
of your agonies is welcome to Him, and that your blood, groans, 
and degradation find favour in His eyes, I would not believe them. 
Better have over a company of Fakeers at once, and set the 
Suttee going. 

Of these tortures, however, I had not the fortune to witness a 
sight : for going towards the mountain for the first four miles, the 
only conveyance I could find was half the pony of an honest sailor, 
who said, when applied to, " I tell you what I do wid you : I give 
you a spell about." But, as it turned out we were going different ways, 
this help was but a small one. A car with a spare seat, however, 
(there were hundreds of others quite full, and scores of rattling 
country-carts covered with people, and thousands of bare legs trudg- 
ing along the road,) — a car with a spare seat passed by at two miles 
from the Pattern, and that just in time to get comfortably wet through 
on arriving there. The whole mountain was enveloped in mist ; and 
we could nowhere see thirty yards before us. The women walked 
forward, with their gowns over their heads ; the men sauntered on in 
the rain, with the utmost indifference to it. The car presently came 
to a cottage, the court in front of which was black with two hundred 
horses, and where as many drivers were jangling and bawling ; and 
here we were told to descend. You had to go over a wall and across 
a brook, and behold the Pattern. 

The pleasures of the poor people — for after the business on the 
mountain came the dancing and love-making at its foot — were wofully 
spoiled by the rain, which rendered dancing on the grass impossible ; 
nor were the tents big enough for that exercise. Indeed, the whole 
sight was as dismal and half-savage a one as I have seen. There 
may have been fifty of these" tents squatted round a plain of the most 
brilliant green grass, behind which the mist-curtains seemed to rise 



224 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



immediately ; for you could not even see the mountain-side beyond 
them. Here was a great crowd of men and women, all ugly, as the 
fortune of the day would have it (for the sagacious reader has, no 
doubt, remarked that there are ugly and pretty days in life). Stalls 
were spread about, whereof the owners were shrieking out the praises 
of their wares — great coarse damp-looking bannocks of bread for 
the most part, or, mayhap, a dirty collection of pigsfeet and such 
refreshments. Several of the booths professed to belong to "con- 
fectioners " from Westport or Castlebar, the confectionery consisting 
of huge biscuits and doubtful-looking ginger-beer — ginger-ale or 
gingeretta it is called in this country, by a fanciful people who love 
the finest titles. Add to these, caldrons containing water for " tay " 
at the doors of the booths, other pots full of masses of pale legs of 
mutton (the owner "prodding," every now and then, for a bit, and 
holding it up and asking the passenger to buy). In the booths it 
was impossible to stand upright, or to see much, on account of 
smoke. Men and women were crowded in these rude tents, huddled 
together, and disappearing in the darkness. Owners came bustling 
out to replenish the empty water-jugs : and landladies stood outside 
in the rain calling strenuously upon all passers-by to enter. Here is a 
design taken from one of the booths, presenting ingeniously an 
outside and an inside view of the same place — an artifice seldom 
practised in pictures. 




Meanwhile, high up on the invisible mountain, the people were 
dragging their bleeding knees from altar to altar, flinging stones, 



RETURNING FROM THE PATTERN 225 

and muttering some endless litanies, with the priests standing by. 
I think I was not sorry that the rain, and the care of my precious 
health, prevented me from mounting a severe hill to witness a sight 
that could only have caused one to be shocked and ashamed that 
servants of God should encourage it. The road home was very 
pleasant ; everybody was wet through, but everybody was happy, and 
by some miracle we were seven on the car. There was the honest 
Englishman in the military cap, who sang " The sea, the hopen sea's 
my 'ome," although not any one of the company called upon him for 
that air. Then the music was taken up by a good-natured lass from 
Castlebar ; then the Englishman again, " With burnished brand and 
musketoon;" and there was no end of pushing, pinching, squeezing, 
and laughing. The Englishman, especially, had a favourite yell, with 
which he saluted and astonished all cottagers, passengers, cars, that we 
met or overtook. Presently came prancing by two dandies, who 
were especially frightened by the noise. " Thim's two tailors from 
Westport," said the carman, grinning with all his might. " Come, 
gat out of the way there, gat along ! " piped a small English voice 
from above somewhere. I looked up, and saw a little creature 
perched on the top of a tandem, which he was driving with the most 
knowing air — a dreadful young hero, with a white hat, and a white 
face, and a blue bird's-eye neckcloth. He was five feet high, if an 
inch, an ensign, and sixteen ; and it was a great comfort to think, in 
case of danger or riot, that one of his years and personal strength 
was at hand to give help. 

" Thim's the afficers," said the carman, as the tandem wheeled 
by, a small groom quivering on behind— and the carman spoke with 
the greatest respect this time. Two days before, on arriving at 
Westport, I had seen the same equipage at the door of the inn — 
where for a moment there happened to be no waiter to receive me. 
So, shouldering a carpet-bag, I walked into the inn-hall, and asked a 
gentleman standing there where was the coffee-room ? It was the 
military tandem-driving youth, who with much grace looked up in my 
face, and said calmly, " I dawnt knaw" I believe the little creature 
had just been dining in the very room — and so present my best com- 
pliments to him. 

The Guide-book will inform the traveller of many a beautiful spot 
which lies in the neighbourhood of Westport, and which I had not 
the time to visit ; but I must not take leave of the excellent little 

^5 



226 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

inn without speaking once more of its extreme comfort ; nor of the 
place itself, without another parting word regarding its beauty. It 
forms an event in one's life to have seen that place, so beautiful is it, 
and so unlike all other beauties that I know of. Were such beauties 
lying upon English shores it would be a world's wonder : perhaps, if 
it were on the Mediterranean, or the Baltic, English travellers would 
flock to it by hundreds ; why not come and see it in Ireland ! 
Remote as the spot is, Westport is only two days' journey from 
London now, and lies in a country far more strange to most travellers 
than France or Germany can be. 



( 227 ) 



CHAPTER XXII. 

FROM WESTPORT TO BALLINASLOE. 

The mail-coach took us next day by Castlebar and Tuam to Ballin- 
asloe, a journey of near eighty miles. The country is interspersed 
with innumerable seats belonging to the Blakes, the Browns, and the 
Lynches ; and we passed many large domains belonging to bankrupt 
lords and fugitive squires, with fine lodges adorned with moss and 
battered windows, and parks where, if the grass was growing on the 
roads, on the other hand the trees had been weeded out of the 
grass. About these seats and their owners the guard — an honest, 
shrewd fellow — had all the gossip to tell. The jolly guard himself was a 
ruin, it turned out : he told me his grandfather was a man of large 
property ; his father, he said, kept a pack of hounds, and had spent 
everything by the time he, the guard, was sixteen : so the lad made 
interest to get a mail-car to drive, whence he had been promoted to 
the guard's seat, and now for forty years had occupied it, travelling 
eighty miles, and earning seven-and-twopence every day of his life. 
He had been once ill, he said, for three days ; and if a man may be 
judged by ten hours' talk with him, there were few more shrewd, 
resolute, simple-minded men to be found on the outside of any 
coaches or the inside of any houses in Ireland. 

During the first five-and-twenty miles of the journey, — for the day 
was very sunny and bright, — Croaghpatrick kept us company ; and, 
seated with your back to the horses, you could see, " on the left, that 
vast aggregation of mountains which stretches southwards to the Bay 
of Galway; on the right, that gigantic assemblage which sweeps in 
circular outline northward to Killule." Somewhere amongst those 
hills the great John Tuam was born, whose mansion and cathedral 
are to be seen in Tuam town, but whose fame is spread everywhere. 
To arrive at Castlebar, we go over the undulating valley which lies 
between the mountains of Joyce country and Erris ; and the first 
object which you see on entering the town is a stately Gothic castle 
that stands at a short distance from it. 

On the gate of the stately Gothic castle was written an inscription 



228 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

not very hospitable : " without beware, within amend ; " — just 
beneath which is an iron crane of neat construction. The castle is 
the county gaol, and the iron crane is the gallows of the district. The 
town seems neat and lively : there is a fine church, a grand barracks 
(celebrated as the residence of the young fellow with the bird's-eye 
neckcloth), a club, and a Whig and Tory newspaper. The road 
hence to Tuam is very pretty and lively, from the number of country 
seats along the way, giving comfortable shelter to more Blakes, 
Browns, and Lynches. 

In the cottages, the inhabitants looked healthy and rosy in their 
rags, and the cots themselves in the sunshine almost comfortable. 
After a couple of months in the country, the stranger's eye grows 
somewhat accustomed to the rags : they do not frighten him as at 
first ; the people who wear them look for the most part healthy enough : 
especially the small children — those who can scarcely totter, and 
are sitting shading their eyes at the door, and leaving the unfinished 
dirt-pie to shout as the coach passes by — are as healthy a looking race 
as one will often see. Nor can any one pass through the land without 
being touched by the extreme love of children among the people : 
they swarm everywhere, and the whole country rings with cries of 
affection towards the children, with the songs of young ragged nurses 
dandling babies on their knees, and warnings of mothers to Patsey to 
come out of the mud, or Norey to get off the pig's back. 

At Tuam the coach stopped exactly for fourteen minutes and a 
half, during which time those who wished might dine : but instead, I 
had the pleasure of inspecting a very mouldy, dirty town, and made 
my way to the Catholic cathedral — a very handsome edifice indeed ; 
handsome without and within, and of the Gothic sort. Over the 
door is a huge coat of arms surmounted by a cardinal's hat — the 
arms of the see, no doubt, quartered with John Tuam's own patri- 
monial coat ; and that was a frieze coat, from all accounts, passably 
ragged at the elbows. Well, he must be a poor wag who could sneer 
at an old coat, because it was old and poor ; but if a man changes 
it for a tawdry gimcrack suit bedizened with twopenny tinsel, and 
struts about calling himself his grace and my lord, when may we 
laugh if not then ? There is something simple in the way in which 
these good people belord their clergymen, and respect titles real or 
sham. Take any Dublin paper, — a couple of columns of it are sure 
to be filled with movements of the small great men of the world. 



IRISH LOVE OF TITLES. 229 

Accounts from Derrynane state that the " Right Honourable the 
Lord Mayor is in good health — his lordship went out with his beagles 
yesterday ; " or " his Grace the Most Reverend the Lord Archbishop 
of Ballywhack, assisted by the Right Reverend the Lord Bishops of 
Trincomalee and Hippopotamus, assisted," &c. ; or " Colonel Tims, 
of Castle Tims, and lady, have quitted the ' Shelburne Hotel,' with a 
party for Kilballybathershins, where the august * party propose to 
enjoy a few days' shrimp-fishing," — and so on. Our people are not 
witty and keen of perceiving the ridiculous, like the Irish ; but the 
bluntness and honesty of the English have well nigh kicked the 
fashionable humbug down ; and except perhaps among footmen and 
about Baker Street, this curiosity about the aristocracy is wearing fast 
away. Have the Irish so much reason to respect their lords that 
they should so chronicle all their movements ; and not only admire real 
lords, but make sham ones of their own to admire them ? 

There is no object of special mark upon the road from Tuam to 
Ballinasloe — the country being flat for the most part, and the noble 
Galway and Mayo mountains having disappeared at length — until you 
come to a glimpse of Old England in the pretty village of Ahascragh. 
An old oak-tree grows in the neat street, the houses are as trim and 
white as eye can desire, and about the church and the town are 
handsome plantations, forming on the whole such a picture of 
comfort and plenty as is rarely to be seen in the part of Ireland I 
have traversed. All these wonders have been wrought by the activity 
of an excellent resident agent. There was a countryman on the 
coach deploring that, through family circumstances, this gentleman 
should have been dispossessed of his agency, and declaring that the 
village had already begun to deteriorate in consequence. The marks 
of such decay were not, however, visible — at least to a new comer ; 
and, being reminded of it, I indulged in many patriotic longings for 
England : as every Englishman does when he is travelling out of the 
country which he is always so willing to quit. 

That a place should instantly begin to deteriorate because a certain 
individual was removed from it — that cottagers should become thrift- 
less, and houses dirty, and house-windows cracked, — all these are 
points which public economists may ruminate over, and can't fail to 
give the carelessest traveller much matter for painful reflection. 
How is it that the presence of one man more or less should affect 
* This epithet is applied to the party of a Colonel somebody, in a Dublin paper. 



230 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

a set of people come to years of manhood, and knowing that they 
have their duty to do ? Why should a man at Ahascragh let his 
home go to ruin, and stuff his windows with ragged breeches instead 
of glass, because Mr. Smith is agent in place of Mr. Jones ? Is he a 
child, that won't work unless the schoolmaster be at hand ? or are we 
to suppose, with the " Repealers," that the cause of all this degradation 
and misery is the intolerable tyranny of the sister country, and the 
pain which poor Ireland has been made to endure ? This is very well 
at the Corn Exchange, and among patriots after dinner ; but, after 
all, granting the grievance of the franchise (though it may not be 
unfair to presume that a man who has not strength of mind enough 
to mend his own breeches or his own windows wall always be the 
tool of one party or another), there is no Inquisition set up in the 
country : the law tries to defend the people as much as they will 
allow ; the odious tithe has even been whisked off from their 
shoulders to the landlords' ; they may live pretty much as they like. 
Is it not too monstrous to howl about English tyranny and suffering 
Ireland, and call for a Stephen's Green Parliament to make the 
country quiet and the people industrious ? The people are not 
politically worse treated than their neighbours in England. The 
priests and the landlords, if they chose to co-operate, might do more 
for the country now than any kings or laws could. What you want 
here is not a Catholic or Protestant party, but an Irish party. 

In the midst of these reflections, and by what the reader will 
doubtless think a blessed interruption, we came in sight of the town 
of Ballinasloe and its "gash-lamps," which a fellow-passenger did not 
fail to point out with admiration. The road-menders, however, did not 
appear to think that light was by any means necessary: for, having been 
occupied, in the morning, in digging a fine hole upon the highway, pre- 
vious to some alterations to be effected there, they had left their work 
at sun-down, without any lamp to warn coming travellers of the hole — 
which we only escaped by a wonder. The papers have much such 
another story. In the Galway and Ballinasloe coach a horse on the 
road suddenly fell down and died ; the coachman drove his coach 
unicorn-fashion into town ; and, as for the dead horse, of course he 
left it on the road at the place where it fell, and where another coach 
coming up was upset over it, bones broken, passengers maimed, 
coach smashed. By heavens ! the tyranny of England is unen- 
durable ; and I have no doubt it had a hand in upsetting that coach. 



{ 231 ) 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

BALLINASLOE TO DUBLIN. 

During the cattle-fair the celebrated town of Ballinasloe is thronged 
with farmers from all parts of the kingdom — the cattle being pic- 
turesquely exhibited in the park of the noble proprietor of the town, 
Lord Clancarty. As it was not fair-time the town did not seem par- 
ticularly busy, nor was there much to remark in it, except a church, 
and a magnificent lunatic asylum, that lies outside the town on the 
Dublin road, and is as handsome and stately as a palace. I think 
the beggars were more plenteous and more loathsome here than 
almost anywhere. To one hideous wretch I was obliged to give 
money to go away, which he did for a moment, only to obtrude his 
horrible face directly afterwards half eaten away with disease. " A 
penny for the sake of poor little Mery," said another woman, who had 
a baby sleeping on her withered breast ; and how can any one who 
has a little Mery at home resist such an appeal ? " Pity the poor 
blind man !" roared a respectably dressed grenadier of a fellow. I 
told him to go to the gentleman with a red neckcloth and fur cap 
(a young buck from Trinity College) — to whom the blind man with 
much simplicity immediately stepped over ; and as for the rest of the 
beggars, what pen or pencil could describe their hideous leering 
flattery, their cringing, swindling humour ! 

The inn, like the town, being made to accommodate the periodical 
crowds of visitors who attended the fair, presented in their absence 
rather a faded and desolate look ; and in spite of the live-stock for 
which the place is famous, the only portion of their produce which I 
could get to my share, after twelve hours' fasting and an hour's bell- 
ringing and scolding, was one very lean mutton-chop and one very 
small damp kidney, brought in by an old tottering waiter to a table 
spread in a huge black coffee-room, dimly lighted by one little jet 
of gas. 

As this only served very faintly to light up the above banquet, 
the waiter, upon remonstrance, proceeded to light the other bee ; 
but the lamp was sulky, and upon this attempt to force it, as it were, 



232 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

refused to act altogether, and went out. The big room was then 
accommodated with a couple of yellow mutton-candles. There was 
a neat, handsome, correct young English officer warming his slippers 
at the fire, and opposite him sat a worthy gentleman, with a glass 
of " mingled materials," discoursing to him in a very friendly and 
confidential way. 

As I don't know the gentleman's name, and as it is ?iot at all 
improbable, from the situation in which he was, that he has quite 
forgotten the night's conversation, I hope there will be no breach of 
confidence in recalling some part of it. The speaker was dressed in 
deep black — worn, however, with that degage air peculiar to the votaries 
of Bacchus, or that nameless god, offspring of Bacchus and Ceres, 
who may have invented the noble liquor called whisky. It was fine 
to see the easy folds in which his neckcloth confined a shirt-collar 
moist with the generous drops that trickled from the chin above, — its 
little per-centage upon the punch. There was a fine dashing black- 
satin waistcoat that called for its share, and generously disdained to 
be buttoned. I think this is the only specimen I have seen yet of 
the personage still so frequently described in the Irish novels — the 
careless drinking squire — t v e Irish Will Whimble. 

" Sir," says he, "as I was telling you before this gentleman came 
in (from Westport, I preshume, sir, by the mail ? and my service to 
you !), the butchers in Tchume (Tuam) — where I live, and shall be 
happy to see you and give you a shakedown, a cut of mutton, and 
the use of as good a brace of pointers as ever you shot over — the 
butchers say to me, whenever I look in at their shops and ask for 
a joint of meat— they say : ' Take down that quarther o' mutton, boy ; 
it's no use weighing it for Mr. Bodkin. He can tell with an eye 
what's the weight of it to an ounce ! ' And so, sir, I can ; and I'd 
make a bet to go into any market in Dublin, Tchume, Ballinasloe, 
where you please, and just by looking at the meat decide its 
weight." 

At the pause, during which the gentleman here designated 
Bodkin drank off his " materials," the young officer said gravely that 
this was a very rare and valuable accomplishment, and thanked him 
for the invitation to Tchume. 

The honest gentleman proceeded with his personal memoirs ; 
and (with a charming modesty that authenticated his tale, while it 
interested his hearers for the teller) he called for a fresh tumbler, 



A GOOD OLD IRISH GENTLEMAN. 233 

and began discoursing about horses. " Them I don't know," says 
he, confessing the fact at once ; " or, if I do, I've been always so 
unlucky with them that it's as good as if I didn't. 

" To give you an idea of my ill-fortune : Me brother-'n-law Burke 
once sent me three colts of his to sell at this very fair of Ballinasloe, 
and for all I could do I could only get a bid for one of 'em, and 
sold her for sixteen pounds. And d'ye know what that mare was, 
sir ? " says Mr. Bodkin, giving a thump that made the spoon jump 
out of the punch-glass for fright. " D'ye know who she was ? she was 
Water- Wagtail, sir, — Water- Wagtail ! She won fourteen cups 
and plates in Ireland before she went to Liverpool ; and you know 
what she did there ? " (We said, " Oh ! of course.") " Well, sir, 
the man who bought her from me sold her for four hunder' guineas ; 
and in England she fetched eight hunder' pounds. 

" Another of them very horses, gentlemen (Tim, some hot 
wather — screeching hot, you divil — and a sthroke of the limin) — 
another of them horses that I was refused fifteen pound for, me 
brother-in-law sould to Sir Rufford Bufford for a hunder' -and-fifty 
guineas. Wasn't that luck ? 

" Well, sir, Sir Rufford gives Burke h^, bill at six months, and 
don't pay it when it come jue. A pretty pickle Tom Burke was in, 
as I leave ye to fancy, for he'd paid away the bill, which he thought 
as good as goold ; and sure it ought to be, for Sir Rufford had come 
of age since the bill was drawn, and before it was due, and, as I 
needn't tell you, had slipped into a very handsome property. 

" On the protest of the bill, Burke goes in a fury to Gresham's in 
Sackville Street, where the baronet was living, and (would ye believe 
it ?) the latter says he doesn't intend to meet the bill, on the score 
that he was a minor when he gave it. On which Burke was in such 
a rage that he took a horsewhip and vowed he'd beat the baronet 
to a jelly, and post him in every club in Dublin, and publish every, 
circumstance of the transaction." 

" It does seem rather a queer one," says one of Mr. Bodkin's 
hearers. 

" Queer indeed : but that's not it, you see ; for Sir Rufford is as 
honourable a man as ever lived ; and after this quarrel he paid Burke 
his money, and they've been warm friends ever since. But what 
I want to show ye is our -infernal luck. Three months before, Sir 
Rufford had sold that very horse for three hunder 1 guineas.' 1 '' 



234 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

The worthy gentleman had just ordered in a fresh tumbler of his 
favourite liquor, when we wished him good-night, and slept by no 
means the worse, because the bed-room candle was carried by one of 
the prettiest young chambermaids possible. 

Next morning, surrounded by a crowd of beggars more filthy, 
hideous, and importunate than any I think in the most favoured 
towns of the south, we set off, a coach-load, for Dublin. A clergy- 
man, a guard, a Scotch farmer, a butcher, a bookseller's hack, a lad 
bound for Maynooth and another for Trinity, made a varied, 
pleasant party enough, where each, according to his lights, had 
something to say. 

I have seldom seen a more dismal and uninteresting road than 
that which we now took, and which brought us through the "old, 
inconvenient, ill-built, and ugly town of Athlone." The painter 
would find here, however, some good subjects for his sketch-book, 
in spite of the commination of the Guide-book. Here, too, great 
improvements are taking place for the Shannon navigation, which 
will render the town not so inconvenient as at present it is stated to 
be ; and hard by lies a little village that is known and loved by all 
the world where English is spoken. It is called Lishoy, but its real 
name is Auburn, and it gave birth to one Noll Goldsmith, whom 
Mr. Boswell was in the habit of despising very heartily. At the 
Quaker town of Moate, the butcher and the farmer dropped off, the 
clergyman went inside, and their places were filled by four May- 
noothians, whose vacation was just at an end. One of them, a 
freshman, was inside the coach with the clergyman, and told him, 
with rather a long face, of the dismal discipline of his college. They 
are not allowed to quit the gates (except on general walks) ; they are 
expelled if they read a newspaper ; and they begin term with " a 
retreat " of a week, which time they are made to devote to silence, 
and, as it is supposed, to devotion and meditation. 

I must say the young fellows drank plenty of whisky on the road, 
. to prepare them for their year's abstinence ; and, when at length 
arrived in the miserable village of Maynooth, determined not to go 
into college that night, but to devote the evening to " a lark." They 
were simple, kind-hearted young men, sons of farmers or tradesmen 
seemingly ; and, as is always the case here, except among some of the 
gentry, very gentlemanlike and pleasing in manners. Their talk 
was of this companion and that; how one was in rhetoric, and 



THE MAYNOOTH STUDENTS. 235 

another in logic, and a third had got his curacy. Wait for a while ; 
and with the happy system pursued within the walls of their college, 
those smiling, good-humoured faces will come out with a scowl, and 
downcast eyes that seem afraid to look the world in the face. When 
the time comes for them to take leave of yonder dismal-looking 
barracks, they will be men no longer, but bound over to the church, 
body and soul : their free thoughts chained down and kept in dark- 
ness, their honest affections mutilated. Well, I hope they will be 
happy to-night at any rate, and talk and laugh to their hearts' 
content The poor freshman, whose big chest is carried off by the 
porter yonder to the inn, has but twelve hours more of hearty, 
natural, human life. To-morrow, they will begin their work upon 
him ; cramping his mind, and biting his tongue, and firing and 
cutting at his heart, — breaking him to pull the church chariot. Ah ! 
why didn't he stop at home, and dig potatoes and get children ? 

Part of the drive from Maynooth to Dublin is exceedingly pretty : 
you are carried through Leixlip, Lucan, Chapelizod, and by scores of 
parks and villas, until the gas-lamps come in sight. Was there ever 
a cockney that was not glad to see them ; and did not prefer the 
sight of them, in his heart, to the best lake or mountain ever invented ? 
Pat the waiter comes jumping down to the car and says, " Welcome 
back, sir ! " and bustles the trunk into the queer little bedroom, with 
all the cordial hospitality imaginable. 



236 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

TWO DAYS IN WICKLOW. 

The little tour we have just been taking has been performed, not 
only by myriads of the " car-drivingest, tay-drinkingest, say-bathingest 
people in the world," the inhabitants of the city of Dublin, but also 
by all the tourists who have come to discover this country for the 
benefit of the English nation. " Look here ! " says the ragged, 
bearded genius of a guide at the Seven Churches. " This is the spot 
which Mr. Henry Inglis particularly admired, and said it was exactly 
like Norway. Many's the song I've heard Mr. Sam Lover sing here 
— a pleasant gentleman entirely. Have you seen my picture that's 
taken off in Mrs. Hall's book ? All the strangers know me by it, 
though it makes me much cleverer than I am." Similar tales has he 
of Mr. Barrow, and the Transatlantic Willis, and of Crofton Croker, 
who has been everywhere. 

The guide's remarks concerning the works of these gentlemen 
inspired me, I must confess, with considerable disgust and jealousy. 
A plague take them ! what remains for me to discover after the 
gallant adventurers in the service of Paternoster Row have examined 
every rock, lake, and ruin of the district, exhausted it of all its 
legends, and " invented new " most likely, as their daring genius 
prompted ? Hence it follows that the description of the two days' 
jaunt must of necessity be short ; lest persons who have read former 
accounts should be led to refer to the same, and make comparisons 
which might possibly be unfavourable to the present humble pages. 

Is there anything new to be said regarding the journey? In the 
first place, there's the railroad : it's no longer than the railroad to 
Greenwich, to be sure, and almost as well known ; but has it been 
done ? that's the question ; or has anybody discovered the dandies 
on the railroad ? 

After wondering at the beggars and carmen of Dublin, the stranger 
can't help admiring another vast and numerous class of inhabitants 
of the city — namely, the dandies. Such a number of smartly-dressed 
young fellows I don't think any town possesses : no, not Paris, where 



DUBLIN DANDIES. 237 

the young shopmen, with spurs and stays, may be remarked strutting 
abroad on fete-days ; nor London, where on Sundays, in the Park, 
you see thousands of this cheap kind of aristocracy parading ; nor 
Liverpool, famous for the breed of commercial dandies, desk and 
counter D'Orsays and cotton and sugar-barrel Brummels, and whom 
one remarks pushing on to business with a brisk determined air. All 
the above races are only to be encountered on holidays, except by 
those persons whose affairs take them to shops, docks, or counting- 
houses, where these fascinating young fellows labour during the 
week. 

But the Dublin breed of dandies is quite distinct from those of 
the various cities above named, and altogether superior : for they 
appear every day, and all day long, not once a week merely, and have 
an original and splendid character and appearance of their own, very 
hard to describe, though no doubt every traveller, as well as myself, 
has admired and observed it. They assume a sort of military and 
ferocious look, not observable in other cheap dandies, except in 
Paris perhaps now and then ; and are to be remarked not so much 
for the splendour of their ornaments as for the profusion of them. 
Thus, for instance, a hat which is worn straight over the two eyes 
costs very likely more than one which hangs upon one ear ; a great 
oily bush of hair to balance the hat (otherwise the head no doubt 
would fall hopelessly on one side) is even more economical than a 
crop which requires the barber's scissors oft-times ; also a tuft on the 
chin may be had at a small expense of bear's-grease by persons of a 
proper age ; and although big pins are the fashion, I am bound to 
say I have never seen so many or so big as here. Large agate 
marbles or " taws," globes terrestrial and celestial, pawnbrokers' balls, 
— I cannot find comparisons large enough for these wonderful orna- 
ments of the person. Canes also should be mentioned, which are 
sold very splendid, with gold or silver heads, for a shilling on the 
Quays ; and the dandy not uncommonly finishes off with a horn 
quizzing-glass, which being stuck in one eye contracts the brows and 
gives a fierce determined look to the whole countenance. 

In idleness at least these young men can compete with the 
greatest lords ; and the wonder is, how the city can support so many 
of them, or they themselves ; how they manage to spend their time : 
who gives them money to ride hacks in the " Phaynix" on field and 
race days ; to have boats at Kingstown during the summer ; and to 



238 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

be crowding the railway-coaches all the day long ? Cars go whirling 
about all day, bearing squads of them. You see them sauntering 
at all the railway-stations in vast numbers, and jumping out of the 
carriages as the trains come up, and greeting other dandies with that 
rich large brogue which some actor ought to make known to the 
English public : it being the biggest, richest, and coarsest of all the 
brogues of Ireland. 

I think these dandies are the chief objects which arrest the 
stranger's attention as he travels on the Kingstown railroad, and I 
have always been so much occupied in watching and wondering at 
them as scarcely to have leisure to look at anything else during the 
pretty little ride of twenty minutes so beloved by every Dublin 
cockney. The waters of the bay wash in many places the piers on 
which the railway is built, and you see the calm stretch of water 
beyond, and the big purple hill of Howth, and the lighthouses, and 
the jetties, and the shipping. Yesterday was a boat-race, (I don't 
know how many scores of such take place during the season,) and 
you may be sure there were tens of thousands of the dandies to look 
on. There had been boat-races the two days previous : before that, 
had been a field day — before that, three days of garrison races — 
to-day, to-morrow, and the day after, there are races at Howth. There 
seems some sameness in the sports, but everybody goes ; everybody 
is never tired ; and then, I suppose, comes the punch-party, and the 
song in the evening — the same old pleasures, and the same old songs 
the next day, and so on to the end. As for the boat-race, I saw 
two little boats in the distance tugging away for dear life — the beach 
and piers swarming with spectators, the bay full of small yachts and 
innumerable row-boats, and in the midst of the assemblage a convict- 
ship lying ready for sail, with a black mass of poor wretches on her 
deck — who, too, were eager for pleasure. 

Who is not, in this country ? Walking away from the pier and 
King George's column, you arrive upon rows after rows of pleasure- 
houses, whither all Dublin flocks during the summer-time — for every 
one must have his sea-bathing ; and they say that the country houses 
to the west of the town are empty, or to be had for very small prices, 
while for those on the coast, especially towards Kingstown, there is 
the readiest sale at large prices. I have paid frequent visits to one, 
of which the rent is as great as that of a tolerable London house ; 
and there seem to be others suited to all purses : for instance, there 



BRA Y. 239 

are long lines of two-roomed houses, stretching far back and away 
from the sea, accommodating, doubtless, small commercial men, or 
small families, or some of those travelling dandies we have just been 
talking about, and whose costume is so cheap and so splendid. 

A two-horse car, which will accommodate twelve, or will con- 
descend to receive twenty passengers, starts from the railway-station 
for Bray, running along the coast for the chief part of the journey, 
though you have but few views of the sea, on account of intervening 
woods and hills. The whole of this country is covered with hand- 
some villas and their gardens, and pleasure-grounds. There are 
round many of the houses parks of some extent, and always of 
considerable beauty, among the trees of which the road winds. New 
churches are likewise to be seen in various places ; built like the 
poor-houses, that are likewise everywhere springing up, pretty much 
upon one plan — a sort of bastard or Vauxhall Gothic — resembling no 
architecture of any age previous to that when Horace Walpole 
invented the Castle of Otranto and the other monstrosity upon 
Strawberry Hill : though it must be confessed that those on the Bray 
line are by no means so imaginative. Well, what matters, say you, 
that the churches be ugly, if the truth is preached within ? Is it not 
fair, however, to say that Beauty is the truth too, of its kind ? and 
why should it not be cultivated as well as other truth ? Why build 
these hideous barbaric temples, when at the expense of a little study 
and taste beautiful structures might be raised ? 

After leaving Bray, with its pleasant bay, and pleasant river, and 
pleasant inn, the little Wicklow tour may be said to commence pro- 
perly; and, as that romantic and beautiful country has been described 
many times in familiar terms, our only chance is to speak thereof in 
romantic and beautiful language, such as no other writer can possibly 
have employed. 

We rang at the gate of the steward's lodge and said, " Grant 
us a pass, we pray, to see the parks of Powerscourt, and to behold 
the brown deer upon the grass, and the cool shadows under the 
whispering trees." 

But the steward's son answered, " You may not see the parks of 
Powerscourt, for the lord of the castle comes home, and we expect 
him daily." So, wondering at this reply, but not understanding the 
same, we took leave of the son of the steward and said, "No 
doubt Powerscourt is not fit to see. Have we not seen parks in 



240 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

England, my brother, and shall we break our hearts that this Irish 
one hath its gates closed to us ? " 

Then the car-boy said, " My lords, the park is shut, but the 
waterfall runs for every man ; will it please you to see the waterfall ?" 
" Boy," we replied, " we have seen many waterfalls ; nevertheless, 
lead on ! " And the boy took his pipe out of his mouth and bela- 
boured the ribs of his beast. 

And the horse made believe, as it were, to trot, and jolted the 
ardent travellers ; and we passed the green trees of Tinnehinch, 
which the grateful Irish nation bought and consecrated to the race of 
Grattan ; and we said, " What nation will spend fifty thousand 
pounds for our benefit ? " and we wished we might get it ; and we 
passed on. The birds were, meanwhile, chanting concerts in the 
woods ; and the sun was double-gilding the golden corn. 

And we came to a hill, which was steep and long of descent ; and 
the car-boy said, " My lords, I may never descend this hill with safety 
to your honours' bones : for my horse is not sure of foot, and loves 
to kneel in the highway. Descend therefore, and I will await your 
return here on the top of the hill." 

So we descended, and one grumbled greatly ; but the other said, 
" Sir, be of good heart ! the way is pleasant, and the footman will 
not weary as he travels it." And we went through the swinging 
gates of a park, where the harvest-men sate at their potatoes — a 
mealy meal. 

The way was not short, as the companion said, but still it was 
a pleasant way to walk. Green stretches of grass were there, and 
a forest nigh at hand. It was but September : yet the autumn had 
already begun to turn the green trees into red ; and the ferns that 
were waving underneath the trees were reddened and fading too. 
And as Dr. Jones's boys of a Saturday disport in the meadows 
after school-hours, so did the little clouds run races over the waving 
grass. And as grave ushers who look on smiling at the sports of 
these little ones, so stood the old trees around the green, whispering 
and nodding to one another. 

Purple mountains rose before us in front, and we began presently 
to hear a noise and roaring afar off — not a fierce roaring, but one 
deep and calm, like to the respiration of the great sea, as he lies 
basking on the sands in the sunshine. 

And we came soon to a little hillock of green, which was standing 



PO WERSCO UR T WA TERFALL. 



241 



before a huge mountain of purple black, and there were white clouds 
over the mountains, and some trees waving on the hillock, and 
between the trunks of them we saw the waters of the waterfall 
descending ; and there was a snob on a rock, who stood and 
examined the same. 




Then we approached the water, passing the clump of oak-trees. 
The waters were white, and the cliffs which they varnished were 
purple. But those round about were gray, tall, and gay with blue 
shadows, and ferns, heath, and rusty-coloured funguses sprouting 
here and there in the same. But in the ravine where the waters fell, 
roaring as it were with the fall, the rocks were dark, and the foam 
of the cataract was of a yellow colour. And we stood, and were 
silent, and wondered. And still the trees continued to wave, and the 
waters to roar and tumble, and the sun to shine, and the fresh wind 
to blow. 

And we stood and looked : and said in our hearts it was beautiful, 
and bethought us how shall all this be set down in types and ink ? 
(for our trade is to write books and sell the same — a chapter for a 
guinea, a line for a penny) ; and the waterfall roared in answer, 
" For shame, O vain man ! think not of thy books and of thy pence 
now ; but look on, and wonder, and be silent. Can types or ink 
describe my beauty, though aided by thy small wit ? I am made for 
thee to praise and wonder at : be content, and cherish thy wonder. 
It is enough that thou hast seen a great thing : is it needful that thou 
shouldst prate of all thou hast seen?" 

16 



242 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

So we came away silently, and walked through the park without 
looking back. And there was a man at the gate, who opened it and 
seemed to say, " Give me a little sixpence." But we gave nothing, 
and walked up the hill, which was sore to climb ; and on the summit 
found the car-boy, who was lolling on his cushions and smoking, as 
happy as a lord. 




Quitting the waterfall at Powerscourt (the grand style in which it 
has been described was adopted in order that the reader, who has 
probably read other descriptions of the spot, might have at least some- 
thing new in this account of it), we speedily left behind us the 
rich and wooded tract of country about Powerscourt, and came to a 
bleak tract, which, perhaps by way of contrast with so much natural 
wealth, is not unpleasing, and began ascending what is very properly 
called the Long Hill. Here you see, in the midst of the loneliness, 
a grim-looking barrack, that was erected when, after the Rebellion, it 
was necessary for some time to occupy this most rebellious country ; 
and a church, looking equally dismal, a lean-looking sham-Gothic 
building, in the midst of this green desert The road to Luggala, 
whither we were bound, turns off the Long Hill, up another hill, which 
seems still longer and steeper, inasmuch as it was ascended perforce 
on foot, and over lonely boggy moorlands, enlivened by a huge gray 
boulder plumped here and there, and comes, one wonders how, to the 
spot. Close to this hill of Slievebuck, is marked in the maps a 
district called " the uninhabited country," and these stones probably 
fell at a period of time when not only this district, but all the world 
was uninhabited, — and in some convulsion of the neighbouring moun- 
tains this and other enormous rocks were cast abroad. 

From behind one of them, or out of the ground somehow, as we 
went up the hill, sprang little ragged guides, who are always lurking 
about in search of stray pence from tourists; and we had three or four 



VULGAR HISTORIES. 243 

of such at our back by the time we were at the top of the hill. Almost 
the first sight we saw was a smart coach-and-four, with a loving wedding- 
party within, and a genteel valet and lady's-maid without. I wondered 
had they been burying their modest loves in the uninhabited district ? 
But presently, from the top of the hill, I saw the place in which 
their honeymoon had been passed : nor could any pair of lovers, nor 
a pious hermit bent on retirement from the world, have selected a 
more sequestered spot. 

Standing by a big shining granite stone on the hill-top, we looked 
immediately down upon Lough Tay — a little round lake of half a mile 
in length, which lay beneath us as black as a pool of ink — a high, 
crumbling, white-sided mountain falling abruptly into it on the side 
opposite to us, with a huge ruin of shattered rocks at its base. North- 
wards, we could see between mountains a portion of the neighbouring 
lake of Lough Dan — which, too, was dark, though the Annamoe river, 
which connects the two lakes, lay coursing through the greenest 
possible fiats and shining as bright as silver. Brilliant green shores, 
too, come gently down to the southern side of Lough Tay ; through 
these runs another river, with a small rapid or fall, which makes a 
music for the lake; and here, amidst beautiful woods, lies a villa, where 
the four horses, the groom and valet, the postilions, and the young 
couple had, no doubt, been hiding themselves. 

Hereabouts, the owner of the villa, Mr. Latouche, has a great 
grazing establishment; and some herd-boys, no doubt seeing strangers 
on the hill, thought proper that the cattle should stray that way, that 
they might drive them back again, and parenthetically ask the 
travellers for money, — everybody asks travellers for money, as it 
seems. Next day, admiring in a labourer's arms a little child — his 
master's son, who could not speak — the labourer, his he-nurse, spoke 
for him, and demanded a little sixpence to buy the child apples. One 
grows not a little callous to this sort of beggary : and the only one 
of our numerous young guides who got a reward was the raggedest of 
them. He and his companions had just come from school, he said, 
—not a Government school, but a private one, where they paid. I 
asked how much, — " Was it a penny a week ? " " No ; not a penny 
a week, but so much at the end of the year." "Was it a barrel of 
meal, or a few stone of potatoes, or something of that sort ? " " Yes ; 
something of that sort." 

The something must, however, have been a very small something 



244 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

on the poor lad's part. He was one of four young ones, who lived 
with their mother, a widow. He had no work ; he could get no 
work ; nobody had work. His mother had a cabin with no land — 
not a perch of land, no potatoes — nothing but the cabin. How did 
they live ? — the mother knitted stockings. I asked had she any 
stockings at home? — the boy said, "No." How did he live? — he 
lived how he could ; and we gave him threepence, with which, in 
delight, he went bounding off to the poor mother. Gracious heavens ! 
what a history to hear, told by a child looking quite cheerful as he 
told it, and as if the story was quite a common one. And a common 
one, too, it is : and God forgive us. 

Here is another, and of a similar low kind, but rather pleasanter. 
We asked the car-boy how much he earned. He said, " Seven 
shillings a week, and his chances " — which, in the summer season, from 
the number of tourists who are jolted in his car, must be tolerably 
good — eight or nine shillings a week more, probably. But, he said, in 
winter his master did not hire him for the car ; and he was obliged 
to look for work elsewhere : as for saving, he never had saved a 
shilling in his life. 

We asked him was he married ? and he said, No, but he was as 
good as married ; for he had an old mother and four little brothers to 
keep, and six mouths to feed, and to dress himself decent to drive the 
gentlemen. Was not the "as good as married " a pretty expression? and 
might not some of what are called their betters learn a little good from 
these simple poor creatures ? There's many a young fellow who sets up 
in the world would think it rather hard to have four brothers to sup- 
port ; and I have heard more than one genteel Christian pining over five 
hundred a year. A few such may read this, perhaps : let them think 
of the Irish widow with the four children and nothing, and at least be 
more contented with their port and sherry and their leg of mutton. 

This brings us at once to the subject of dinner and the little 
village, Roundwood, which was reached by this time, lying a few 
miles off from the lakes, and reached by a road not particularly 
remarkable for any picturesqueness in beauty ; though you pass 
through a simple, pleasing landscape, always agreeable as a repose, I 
think, after viewing a sight so beautiful as those mountain lakes we 
have just quitted. All the hills up which we had panted had 
imparted a fierce sensation of hunger ; and it was nobly decreed that 
we should stop in the middle of the street of Roundwood, impartially 



THE THEATRE. 245 

between the two hotels, and solemnly decide upon a resting-place after 
having inspected the larders and bedrooms of each. 

And here, as an impartial writer, I must say that the hotel of 
Mr. Wheatly possesses attractions which few men can resist, in the 
shape of two very handsome young ladies his daughters ; whose faces, 
were they but painted on his signboard, instead of the mysterious 
piece which ornaments it, would infallibly draw tourists into the 
house, thereby giving the opposition inn of Murphy not the least 
chance of custom. 

A landlord's daughters in England, inhabiting a little country inn, 
would be apt to lay the cloth for the traveller, and their respected 
father would bring in the first dish of the dinner ; but this arrange- 
ment is never known in Ireland : we scarcely ever see the cheering 
countenance of my landlord. And as for the young ladies of Round- 
wood, I am bound to say that no young persons in Baker Street 
could be more genteel ; and that our bill, when it was brought 
the next morning, was written in as pretty and fashionable a lady's 
hand as ever was formed in the most elegant finishing school at 
Pimlico. 

Of the dozen houses of the little village, the half seem to be 
houses of entertainment. A green common stretches before these, 
with its rural accompaniments of geese, pigs, and idlers ; a park and 
plantation at the end of the village, and plenty of trees round about 
it, give it a happy, comfortable, English look ; which is, to my notion, 
the best compliment that can be paid to a hamlet : for where, after 
all, are villages so pretty ? 

Here, rather to one's wonder — for the district was not thickly 
enough populated to encourage dramatic exhibitions — a sort of theatre 
was erected on the common, a ragged cloth covering the spectators 
and the actors, and the former (if there were any) obtaining admit- 
tance through two doors on the stage in front, marked " pit & galerv." 
Why should the word not be spelt with one L as with two ? 

The entrance to the "pit" was stated to be threepence, and to the 
" galery " twopence. We heard the drums and pipes of the orchestra as 
we sate at dinner : it seemed to be a good opportunity to examine 
Irish humour of a peculiar sort, and we promised ourselves a pleasant 
evening in the pit. 

But although the drums began to beat at half-past six, and a 
crowd of young people formed round the ladder at that hour, to 



246 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

whom the manager of the troop addressed the most vehement invi- 
tations to enter, nobody seemed to be inclined to mount the steps : 
for the fact most likely was, that not one of the poor fellows pos- 
sessed the requisite twopence which would induce the fat old lady 
who sate by it to fling open the gallery door. At one time I thought 
of offering a half-crown for a purchase of tickets for twenty, and so at 
once benefiting the manager and the crowd of ragged urchins who stood 
wistfully without his pavilion ; but it seemed ostentatious, and we had 
not the courage to face the tall man in the great-coat gesticulating 
and shouting in front of the stage, and make the proposition. 

Why not ? It would have given the company potatoes at least 
for supper, and made a score of children happy. They would have 
seen "the learned pig who spells your name, the feats of manly 
activity, the wonderful Italian vaulting ; " and they would have heard 
the comic songs by " your humble servant." 

" Your humble servant" was the head of the troop : a long man, 
with a broad accent, a yellow top-coat, and a piteous lean face. What 
a speculation was this poor fellow's ! he must have a company of at 
least a dozen to keep. There were three girls in trousers, who danced 
in front of the stage, in Polish caps, tossing their arms about to the 
tunes of three musicianers ; there was a page, two young tragedy- 
actors, and a clown ; there was the fat old woman at the gallery-door 
waiting for the twopences ; there was the Jack Pudding ; and it was 
evident that there must have been some one within, or else who would 
take care of the learned pig? 

The poor manager stood in front, and shouted to the little Irishry 
beneath ; but no one seemed to move. Then he brought forward 
Jack Pudding, and had a dialogue with him ; the jocularity of which, 
by heavens ! made the heart ache to hear. We had determined, at 
least, to go to the play before that, but the dialogue was too much : 
we were obliged to walk away, unable to face that dreadful Jack 
Pudding, and heard the poor manager shouting still for many hours 
through the night, and the drums thumping vain invitations to the 
people. O unhappy children of the Hibernian Thespis ! it is my belief 
that they must have eaten the learned pig that night for supper. 

It was Sunday morning when we left the little inn at Roundwood : 
the people were flocking in numbers to church, on cars and pillions, 
neat, comfortable, and well dressed. We saw in this country more 
health, more beauty, and more shoes than I have remarked in any 



THE DEVILS GLEN. 247 

quarter. That famous resort of sightseers, the Devil's Glen, lies at a 
few miles' distance from the little village ; and, having gone on the 
car as near to the spot as the road permitted, we made across the 
fields — boggy, stony, ill-tilled fields they were — for about a mile, at 
the end of which walk we found ourselves on the brow of the ravine 
that has received so ugly a name. 

Is there a legend about the place? No doubt for this, as for 
almost every other natural curiosity in Ireland, there is some tale of 
monk, saint, fairy, or devil ; but our guide on the present day was a 
barrister from Dublin, who did not deal in fictions by any means so 
romantic, and the history, whatever it was, remained untold. Per- 
haps the little breechesless cicerone who offered himself would have 
given us the story, but we dismissed the urchin with scorn, and had 
to find our own way through bush and bramble down to the entrance 
of the gully. 

Here we came on a cataract, which looks very big in Messrs. 
Curry's pretty little Guide-book (that every traveller to Wicklow will 
be sure to have in his pocket) ; but the waterfall, on this shining 
Sabbath morning, was disposed to labour as little as possible, and 
indeed is a spirit of a very humble, ordinary sort. 

But there is a ravine of a mile and a half, through which a river 
runs roaring (a lady who keeps the gate will not object to receive a 
gratuity) — there is a ravine, or Devil's glen, which forms a delightful 
wild walk, and where a Methuselah of a landscape-painter might find 
studies for all his life long. All sorts of foliage arid colour, all sorts 
of delightful caprices of light and shadow — the river tumbling and 
frothing amidst the boulders — " raucum per lasvia murmur saxa ciens," 
and a chorus of 150,000 birds (there might be more), hopping, 
twittering, singing under the clear cloudless Sabbath scene, make this 
walk one of the most delightful that can be taken ; and indeed I 
hope there is no harm in saying that you may get as much out' of an 
hour's walk there as out of the best hour's extempore preaching. 
But this was as a salvo to our conscience for not being at church. 

Here, however, was a long aisle, arched gothically overhead, in a 
much better taste than is seen in some of those dismal new churches; 
and, by way of painted glass, the sun lighting up multitudes of 
various-coloured leaves, and the birds for choristers, and the river by 
way of organ, and in it stones enough to make a whole library of 
sermons. No man can walk in such a place without feeling grateful, 



248 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

and grave, and humble ) and without thanking heaven for it as he 
comes away. And, walking and musing in this free, happy place, one 
'could not help thinking of a million and a half of brother cockneys--^ 
shut up in their huge prison (the tread-mill for the day being idle), 
and told by some legislators that relaxation is sinful, that works of 
art are abominations except on week-days, and that their proper 
place of resort is a dingy tabernacle, where a loud-voiced man is 
howling about hell-fire in bad grammar. Is not this beautiful world, 
too, a part of our religion ? Yes, truly, in whatever way my Lord 
John Russell may vote ; and it is to be learned without having re- 
course to any professor at any Bethesda, Ebenezer, or Jerusalem : 
there can be no mistake about it ; no terror, no bigoted dealing of 
damnation to one's neighbour : it is taught without false emphasis or 
vain spouting on the preacher's part — how should there be. such with 
such a preacher ? 

This wild onslaught upon sermons and preachers needs perhaps 
an explanation : for which purpose we must whisk back out of the 
Devil's Glen (improperly so named) to Dublin, and to this day week, 
when, at this very time, I heard one of the first preachers of the city 
deliver a sermon that lasted for an hour and twenty minutes — time 
enough to walk up the Glen and back, and remark a thousand delight- 
ful things by the way. 

Mr. G 's church (though there would be no harm in mention- 
ing the gentleman's name, for a more conscientious and excellent 
man, as it is said, cannot be) is close by the Custom House in Dublin, 
and crowded morning and evening with his admirers. The service 
was beautifully read by him, and the audience joined in the responses, 
and in the psalms and hymns,* with a fervour which is very unusual 
in England. Then came the sermon ; and what more can be said of 
it than that it was extempore, and lasted for an hour and twenty 
minutes ? The orator never failed once for a word, so amazing is his 
practice ; though, as a stranger to this kind of exercise, I could not 

* Here is an extract from one of the latter — 

" Hasten to some distant isle, 
In the bosom of the deep, 
Where the skies for ever smile, 
And the blacks for ever weep." 

Is it not a shame that such nonsensical false twaddle should be sung in a house 
of the Church of England, and by people assembled for grave and decent worship ? 



EXTEMPORE PREACHING. 249 

help trembling for the performer, as one has for Madame Saqui on 
the slack-rope, in the midst of a blaze of rockets and squibs, expect- 
ing every minute she must go over. But the artist was too skilled for 
that ; and after some tremendous bound of a metaphor, in the midst 
of which you expect he must tumble neck and heels, and be engulfed 
in the dark abyss of nonsense, down he was sure to come, in a most 
graceful attitude too, in the midst of a fluttering " Ah !" from a thousand 
wondering people. 

But I declare solemnly that when I came to try and recollect of 
what the exhibition consisted, and give an account of the sermon 
at dinner that evening, it was quite impossible to remember a word 
of it ; although, to do the orator justice, he repeated many of his 
opinions a great number of times over. Thus, if he had to discourse 
of death to. us, it was, "At the approach of the Dark Angel of the 
Grave," " At the coming of the grim King of Terrors," " At the warning 
of that awful Power to whom all of us must bow down," " At the 
summons of that Pallid Spectre whose equal foot knocks at the 
monarch's tower or the poor man's cabin " — and so forth. There is 
an examiner of plays, and indeed there ought to be an examiner of 
sermons, by which audiences are to be fully as much injured or mis- 
guided as by the other named exhibitions. What call have reverend 
gentlemen to repeat their dicta half-a-dozen times over, like Sir 
Robert Peel when he says anything that he fancies to be witty ? Why 
are men to be kept for an hour and twenty minutes listening to that 
which may be more effectually said in twenty ? 

And it need not be said here that a church is not a sermon 
house — that it is devoted to a purpose much more lofty and sacred, 
for which has been set apart the noblest service, every single word of 
which latter has been previously weighed with the most scrupulous 
and thoughtful reverence. And after this sublime work of genius, 
learning, and piety is concluded, is it not a shame that a man should 
mount a desk, who has not taken the trouble to arrange his words 
beforehand, and speak thence his crude opinions in his doubtful 
grammar ? It will be answered that the extempore preacher does 
not deliver crude opinions, but that he arranges his discourse before- 
hand : to all which it may be replied that Mr. contradicted 

himself more than once in the course of the above oration, and 
repeated himself a half-dozen of times. A man in that place has no 
ht to say a word too much or too little. 



I repe 



250 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

And it comes to this, — it is the preacher the people follow, not 
the prayers ; or why is this church more frequented than any other ? 
It is that warm emphasis, and word-mouthing, and vulgar imagery, 
and glib rotundity of phrase, which brings them together and keeps 
them happy and breathless. Some of this class call the Cathedral 
Service Paddy's Opera; they say it is Popish — downright scarlet — 
the)- won't go to it. They will have none but their own hymns — and 
pretty they are — no ornaments but those of their own minister, his 
rank incense and tawdry rhetoric. Coming out of the church, on the 
Custom House steps hard by, there was a fellow with a bald large 
forehead, a new black coat, a little Bible, spouting — spouting " in 
omne volubilis sevum " — the very counterpart of the reverend gentle- 
man hard by. It was just the same thing, just as well done : the 
eloquence quite as easy and round, the amplifications as ready, 
the big words rolling round the tongue just as within doors. But 
we are out of the Devil's Glen by this time ; and perhaps, instead 
^of delivering a sermon there, we had better have been at church 
learing one. 

The country people, however, are far more pious ; and the road 
along which we went to Glendalough was thronged with happy 
figures of people plodding to or from mass. A chapel-yard was 
covered with gray cloaks ; and at a little inn hard by, stood numerous 
carts, cars, shandrydans, and pillioned horses, awaiting the end of the 
prayers. The aspect of the country is wild, and beautiful of course ; 
but why try to describe it ? I think the Irish scenery just like the 
Irish melodies — sweet, wild, and sad even in the sunshine. You can 
neither represent one nor the other by words ; but I am sure if one 
could translate " The Meeting of the Waters" into form and colours, 
it would fall into the exact shape of a tender Irish landscape. So 
take and play that tune upon your fiddle, and shut your eyes, and 
muse a little, and you have the whole scene before you. 

I don't know if there is any tune about Glendalough ; but if there 
be, it must, be the most delicate, fantastic, fairy melody that ever was 
played. Only fancy can describe the charms of that delightful place. 
Directly you see it, it smiles at you as innocent and friendly as a 
little child ; and once seen, it becomes your friend for ever, and you 
are always happy when you think of it. Here is a little lake, and 
little fords across it, surrounded by little mountains, and which lead 
you now to little islands where there are all sorts of fantastic little old 



GLENDALOUGH. 251 

chapels and graveyards ; or, again, into little brakes and shrubberies 
where small rivers are crossing over little rocks, plashing and jump- 
ing, and singing as loud as ever they can. Thomas Moore has 
written rather an awful description of it ; and it may indeed appear 
big to him, and to the fairies who must have inhabited the place in 
old days, that's clear. For who could be accommodated in it except 
the little people ? 

There are seven churches, whereof the clergy must have been the 
smallest persons, and have had the smallest benefices and the littlest 
congregations ever known. As for the cathedral, what a bishoplet it 
must have been that presided there. The place would hardly hold 
the Bishop of London, or Mr. Sydney Smith — two full-sized clergymen 
of these days — who would be sure to quarrel there for want of room, 
or for any other reason. There must have been a dean no bigger 
than Mr. Moore before mentioned, and a chapter no bigger than that 
chapter in " Tristram Shandy " which does not contain a single word, 
and mere popguns of canons, and a beadle about as tall as Crofton 
Croker, to whip the little boys who were playing at taw (with peas) in 
the yard. 

They say there was a university, too, in the place, with I don't 
know how many thousand scholars ; but for accounts of this there is 
an excellent guide on the spot, who, for a shilling or two, will tell all 
he knows, and a great deal more too. 

There are numerous legends, too, concerning St. Kevin, and Fin 
MacCoul and the Devil, and the deuce knows what. But these 
stories are, I am bound to say, abominably stupid and stale; and 
some guide * ought to be seized upon and choked, and flung into the 
lake, by way of warning to the others to stop their interminable 
prate. This is the curse attending curiosity, for visitors to almost all 
the show-places in the country : you have not only the guide — who 
himself talks too much — but a string of ragged amateurs, starting from 
bush and briar, ready to carry his honour's umbrella or my lady's 
cloak, or to help .either up a bank or across a stream. And all the 
while they look wistfully in your face, saying, " Give me sixpence ! " 
as clear as looks can speak. The unconscionable rogues ! how dare 

* It must be said, for the worthy fellow who accompanied us, and who acted 
as cicerone previously to the great Willis, the great Hall, the great Barrow, that 
though he wears a ragged coat his manners are those of a gentleman, and his con- 
versation evinces no small talent, taste, and scholarship. 



252 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

they, for the sake of a little starvation or so, interrupt gentlefolks in 
their pleasure ! 

A long tract of wild country, with a park or two here and there, 
a police-barrack perched on a hill, a half-starved-looking church 
stretching its long scraggy steeple over a wide plain, mountains 
whose base is richly cultivated while their tops are purple and lonely, 
warm cottages and farms nestling at the foot of the hills, and humble 
cabins here and there on the wayside, accompany the car, that jingles 
back over fifteen miles of ground through Inniskerry to Bray. You 
pass by wild gaps and Greater and Lesser Sugar Loaves ; and about 
eight o'clock, when the sky is quite red with sunset, and the long 
shadows are of such a purple as (they may say what they like) Claude 
could no more paint than I can, you catch a glimpse of the sea 
beyond Bray, and crying out, " edXarra, BaXarra ! " affect to be won- 
drously delighted by the sight of that element. 

The fact is, however, that at Bray is one of the best inns in 
Ireland ; and there you may be perfectly sure is a good dinner ready, 
five minutes after the honest car-boy, with innumerable hurroos and 
smacks of his whip, has brought up his passengers to the door with a 
gallop. 



As for the Vale of Avoca, I have not described that : because (as 
has been before occasionally remarked) it is vain to attempt to describe 
natural beauties ; and because, secondly (though this is a minor con- 
sideration), we did not go thither. But we went on another day to 
the Dargle, and to Shanganah, and the city of Cabinteely, and to the 
Scalp — that wild pass : and I have no more to say about them than 
about the Vale of Avoca. The Dublin Cockney, who has these places 
at his door, knows them quite well ; and as for the Londoner, who is 
meditating a trip to the Rhine for the summer, or to Brittany or 
Normandy, let us beseech him to see his own country first (if Lord 
Lyndhurst will allow us to call this a part of it) ; and if, after twenty- 
four hours of an easy journey from London, the Cockney be not 
placed in the midst of a country as beautiful, as strange to him, as 
romantic as the most imaginative man on 'Change can desire, — may 
this work be praised by the critics all round and never reach a 
second edition ! 



( 253 ) 



CHAPTER XXV. 

COUNTRY MEETINGS IN KILDARE MEATH — DROGHEDA. 

An agricultural show was to be held at the town of Naas, and I was 
glad, after having seen the grand exhibition at Cork, to be present at 
a more homely, unpretending country festival, where the eyes of 
Europe, as the orators say, did not happen to be looking on. 
Perhaps men are apt, under the idea of this sort of inspection, to 
assume an air somewhat more pompous and magnificent than that 
which they wear every day. The Naas meeting was conducted 
without the slightest attempt at splendour or display — a hearty, 
modest, matter-of-fact country meeting. 

Market-day was fixed upon of course, and the town, as we drove 
into it, was thronged with frieze-coats, the market-place bright with a 
great number of apple-stalls, and the street filled with carts and vans 
of numerous small tradesmen, vending cheeses, or cheap crockeries, 
or ready-made clothes and such goods. A clothier, with a great 
crowd round him, had arrayed himself in a staring new waistcoat of 
his stock, and was turning slowly round to exhibit the garment, 
spouting all the while to his audience, and informing them that he 
could fit out any person, in one minute, " in a complete new shuit from 
head to fut." There seemed to be a crowd of gossips at every shop- 
door, and, of course, a number of gentlemen waiting at the inn-steps, 
criticizing the cars and carriages as they drove up. Only those who 
live in small towns know what an object of interest the street becomes, 
and the carriages and horses which pass therein. Most of the gentle- 
men had sent stock to compete for the prizes. The shepherds were 
tending the stock. The judges were making their award, and until 
their sentence was given, no competitors could enter the show-yard. 
The entrance to that, meanwhile, was thronged by a great posse of 
people, and as the gate abutted upon an old gray tower, a number of 
people had scaled that, and. were looking at the beasts in the court 
below. Likewise, there was a tall haystack, which possessed similar 



254 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

advantages of situation, and was equally thronged with men and boys. 
The rain had fallen heavily all night, the heavens were still black with 
it, and the coats of the men, and the red feet of many ragged female 
spectators, were liberally spattered with mud. 

The first object of interest we were called upon to see was a 
famous stallion ; and passing through the little by-streets (dirty and 
small, but not so small and dirty as other by-streets to be seen in 
Irish towns,) we came to a porte-cochere, leading into a yard filled 
with wet fresh hay, sinking juicily under the feet ; and here in a shed 
was the famous stallion. His sire must have been a French diligence- 
horse ; he was of a roan colour, with a broad chest, and short clean legs. 
His forehead was ornamented with a blue ribbon, on which his name 
and prizes were painted, and on his chest hung a couple of medals by 
a chain — a silver one awarded to him at Cork, a gold one carried 
off by superior merit from other stallions assembled to contend at 
Dublin. When the points of the animal were sufficiently discussed, 
a mare, his sister, was produced, and admired still more than himself. 
Any man who has witnessed the performance of the French horses in 
the Havre diligence, must admire the vast strength and the extra- 
ordinary swiftness of the breed ; and it was agreed on all hands, that 
such horses would prove valuable in this country, where it is hard 
now to get a stout horse for the road, so much has the fashion for 
blood, and nothing but blood, prevailed of late. 

By the time the stallion was seen, the judges had done their arbi- 
tration ; and we went to the yard, where broad-backed sheep were 
resting peaceably in their pens ; bulls were led about by the nose ; 
enormous turnips, both Swedes and Aberdeens, reposed in the mud; 
little cribs of geese, hens, and peafowl were come to try for the 
prize ; and pigs might be seen — some encumbered with enormous 
families, others with fat merely. They poked up one brute to walk 
for us : he made, after many futile attempts, a desperate rush for- 
ward, his leg almost lost in fat, his immense sides quivering and 
shaking with the exercise ; he was then allowed to return to his 
straw, into which he sank panting. Let us hope that he went home 
with a pink ribbon round his tail that night, and got a prize for his 
obesity. 

I think the pink ribbon was, at least to a Cockney, the pleasantest 
sight of all : for on the evening after the show we saw many carts 
going away so adorned, having carried off prizes on the occasion. 



THE FARMERS' DINNER. 255 

First came a great bull stepping along, he and his driver having each 
a bit of pink on their heads ; then a cart full of sheep ; then a car of 
good-natured-looking people, having a churn in the midst of them 
that sported a pink favour. When all the prizes were distributed, a 
select company sat down to dinner at Macavoy's Hotel ; and no 
doubt a reporter who was present has given in the county paper an 
account of all the good things eaten and said. At our end of the 
table we had saddle-of-mutton, and I remarked a boiled leg of the 
same delicacy, with turnips, at the opposite extremity. Before the 
vice I observed a large piece of roast-beef, which I could not observe 
at the end of dinner, because it was all swallowed. After the mutton 
we had cheese, and were just beginning to think that we had dined 
very sufficiently, when a squadron of apple-pies came smoking in, 
and convinced us that, in such a glorious cause, Britons are never 
at fault. We ate up the apple-pies, and then the punch was called 
for by those who preferred that beverage to wine, and the speeches 
began. 

The chairman gave " The Queen," nine times nine and one cheer 
more ; " Prince Albert and the rest of the Royal Family," great 
cheering ; " The Lord-Lieutenant " — his Excellency's health was re- 
ceived rather coolly, I thought. And then began the real business 
of the night : health of the Naas Society, health of the Agricultural 
Society, and healths all round ; not forgetting the Sallymount Beagles 
and the Kildare Foxhounds — which toasts were received with loud 
cheers and halloos by most of the gentlemen present, and elicited brief 
speeches from the masters of the respective hounds, promising good 
sport next season. After the Kildare Foxhounds, an old farmer in 
a gray coat got gravely up, and without being requested to do so 
in the least, sang a song, stating that — 

" At seven in the morning by most of the clocks 
We rode to Kilruddery in search of a fox ; " 

and at the conclusion of his song challenged a friend to give another 
song. Another old farmer, on this, rose and sang one of Morris's 
songs with a great deal of queer humour ; and no doubt many more 
songs were sung during the evening, for plenty of hot-water jugs were 
blocking the door as we went out. 

The jolly frieze-coated songster who celebrated the Kilruddery 
fox, sang, it must be confessed, most wofully out of tune ; but still it 



256 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

was pleasant to hear him, and I think the meeting was the most 
agreeable one I have seen in Ireland : there was more good-humour, 
more cordial union of classes, more frankness and manliness, than 
one is accustomed to find in Irish meetings. All the speeches were 
kind-hearted, straightforward speeches, without a word of politics or 
an attempt at oratory : it was impossible to say whether the gentlemen 
present were Protestant or Catholic, — each one had a hearty word of 
encouragement for his tenant, and a kind welcome for his neighbour. 
There were forty stout, well-to-do farmers in the room, renters of fifty, 
seventy, a hundred acres of land. There were no clergymen present ; 
though it would have been pleasant to have seen one of each per- 
suasion to say grace for the meeting and the meat. 

At a similar meeting at Ballytore the next day, I had an oppor- 
tunity of seeing a still finer collection of stock than had been brought 
to Naas, and at the same time one of the most beautiful flourishing 

villages in Ireland. The road to it from H town, if not remarkable 

for its rural beauty, is pleasant to travel, for evidences of neat and 
prosperous husbandry are around you everywhere : rich crops in the 
fields, and neat cottages by the roadside, accompanying us as far as 
Ballytore — a white, straggling village, surrounding green fields of some 
five furlongs square, with a river running in the midst of them, and 
numerous fine cattle in the green. Here is a large windmill, fitted up 
like a castle, with battlements and towers : the castellan thereof is a 
good-natured old Quaker gentleman, and numbers more of his 
following inhabit the town. 

The consequence was that the shops of the village were the 
neatest possible, though by no means grand or portentous. Why 
should Quaker shops be neater than other shops ? They suffer to 
the full as much oppression as the rest of the hereditary bondsmen ; 
and yet, in spite of their tyrants, they prosper. 

I must not attempt to pass an opinion upon the stock exhibited 
at Ballytore ; but, in the opinion of some large agricultural proprietors 
present, it might have figured with advantage in any show in England, 
and certainly was finer than the exhibition at Naas ; which, however, 
is a very young society. The best part of the show, however, to 
everybody's thinking, (and it is pleasant to observe the manly fair- 
play spirit which characterizes the society,) was, that the prizes of 
the Irish Agricultural Society were awarded to two men — one a 
labourer, the other a very small holder, both having reared the best 



THE NAAS UNION-HOUSE. 257 

stock exhibited on the occasion. At the dinner, which took place in 
a barn of the inn, smartly decorated with laurels for the purpose, 
there was as good and stout a body of yeomen as at Naas the day 
previous, but only two landlords ; and here, too, as at Naas, neither 
priest nor parson. Cattle-feeding of course formed the principal 
theme of the after-dinner discourse — not, however, altogether to the 
exclusion of tillage ; and there was a good and useful prize for those 
who could not afford to rear fat oxen — for the best kept cottage and 
garden, namely — which was won by a poor man with a large family 
and scanty, precarious earnings, but who yet found means to make 
the most of his small resources and to keep his little cottage neat and 
cleanly. The tariff and the plentiful harvest together had helped to 
bring down prices severely; and we heard from the farmers much 
desponding talk. I saw hay sold for 2/. the ton, and oats for 8s. $d. 
the barrel. 

In the little village I remarked scarcely a single beggar, and very 
few bare feet indeed among the crowds who came to see the show. 
Here the Quaker village had the advantage of the town of Naas, in 
spite of its poor-house, which was onty half full when we went to see 
it ; but the people prefer beggary and starvation abroad to comfort and 
neatness in the union-house. 

A neater establishment cannot be seen than this; and liberty 
must be very sweet indeed, when people prefer it and starvation to 
the certainty of comfort in the union-house. We went to see it after 
the show at Naas. 

The first persons we saw at the gate of the place were four buxom 
lasses in blue jackets and petticoats, who were giggling and laughing 
as gaily as so many young heiresses of a thousand a year, and who 
had a colour in their cheeks that any lady of Almack's might envy. 
They were cleaning pails and carrying in water from a green court or 
playground in front of the house, which some of the able-bodied men 
of the place were busy in inclosing. Passing through the large 
entrance of the house, a nondescript Gothic building, we came to a 
court divided by a road and two low walls : the right inclosure is 
devoted to the boys of the establishment, of whom there were about 
fifty at play: boys more healthy or happy it is impossible to see. 
Separated from them is the nursery ; and here were seventy or eighty 
young children, a shrill clack of happy voices leading the way to the 
door where they were to be found. Boys and children had a 

17 



258 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

comfortable little uniform, and shoes were furnished for all ; though 
the authorities did not seem particularly severe in enforcing the 
wearing of the shoes, which most of the young persons left behind 
them. 

In spite of all The Times 's in the world, the place was a happy 
one. It is kept with a neatness and comfort to which, until his 
entrance into the union-house, the Irish peasant must perforce 
have been a stranger. All the rooms and passages are white, well 
scoured, and airy ; all the windows are glazed ; all the beds have a 
good store of blankets and sheets. In the women's dormitories there 
lay several infirm persons, not ill enough for the infirmary, and glad 
of the society of the common room : in one of the men's sleeping- 
rooms we found a score of old gray-coated men sitting round another 
who was reading prayers to them. And outside the place we found a 
woman starving in rags, as she had been ragged and • starving for 
years : her husband was wounded, and lay in his house upon straw ; 
her children were ill with a fever ; she had neither meat, nor physic, 
nor clothing, nor fresh air, nor warmth for them ; — and she preferred 
to starve on rather than enter the house ! 

The last of our agricultural excursions was to the fair of Castle- 
dermot, celebrated for the show of cattle to be seen there, and 
attended by the farmers and gentry of the neighbouring counties. 
Long before reaching the place we met troops of cattle coming from 
it — stock of a beautiful kind, for the most part large, sleek, white, 
long-backed, most of the larger animals being bound for England. 
There was very near as fine a show in the pastures along the road 
— which lies across a light green country with plenty of trees 
to ornament the landscape, and some neat cottages along the 
roadside. 

At the turnpike of Castledermot the droves of cattle met us by 
scores no longer, but by hundreds, and the long street of the place 
was thronged with oxen, sheep, and horses, and with those who 
wished to see, to sell, or to buy. The squires were all together in a 
cluster at the police-house ; the owners of the horses rode up and 
down, showing the best paces of their brutes : among whom you 
might see Paddy, in his ragged frieze-coat, seated on his donkey's 
bare rump, and proposing him for sale. I think I saw a score of 
this humble though useful breed that were brought for sale to the 
fair. " I can sell him," says one fellow, with a pompous air, " wid 



CASTLEDERMOT. 259 

his tackle or widout." He was looking as grave over the negotiation 
as if it had been for a thousand pounds. Besides the donkeys, of 
course there was plenty of poultry, and there were pigs without 
number, shrieking and struggling and pushing hither and thither 
among the crowd, rebellious to the straw-rope. It was a fine thing 
to see one huge grunter and the manner in which he was landed into 
a cart. The cart was let down on an easy inclined plane to tempt 
him : two men ascending, urged him by the forelegs, other two 
entreated him by the tail. At length, when more than half of his 
body had been coaxed upon the cart, it was suddenly whisked up, 
causing the animal thereby to fall forward ; a parting shove sent him 
altogether into the cart ; the two gentlemen inside jumped out, and 
the monster was left to ride home. 

The farmers, as usual, were talking of the tariff, predicting ruin 
to themselves, as farmers will, on account of the decreasing price 
of stock and the consequent fall of grain. Perhaps the person 
most to be pitied is the poor pig-proprietor yonder : it is his rent 
which he is carrying through the market squeaking at the end of 
the straw-rope, and Sir Robert's bill adds insolvency to that poor 
fellow's misery. 

This was the last of the sights which the kind owner of H — town 
had invited me into his country to see ; and I think they were among 
the most pleasing I witnessed in Ireland. Rich and poor were 
working friendlily together ; priest and parson were alike interested 
in these honest, homely, agricultural festivals ; not a word was said 
about hereditary bondage and English tyranny ; and one did not 
much regret the absence of those patriotic topics of conversation. If 
but for the sake of the change, it was pleasant to pass a few days 
with people among whom there was no quarrelling : no furious denun- 
ciations against Popery on the part of the Protestants, and no tirades 
against the parsons from their bitter and scornful opponents of the 
other creed. 

Next Sunday, in the county Meath, in a quiet old church lying 
amongst meadows and fine old stately avenues of trees, and for the 
benefit of a congregation of some thirty persons, I heard for the 
space of an hour and twenty minutes some thorough Protestant doc- 
trine, and the Popish superstitions properly belaboured. Does it 
strengthen a man in his own creed to hear his neighbour's belief 
abused ? One would imagine so : for though abuse converts nobody, 



260 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

yet many of our pastors think they are not doing their duty by their 
own fold unless they fling stones at the flock in the next field, 
and have, for the honour of the service, a match at cudgelling 
with the shepherd. Our shepherd to-day was of this pugnacious 
sort. 

The Meath landscape, if not varied and picturesque, is extremely 
rich and pleasant ; and we took some drives along the banks of the 
Boyne — to the noble park of Slane (still sacred to the memory of 
George IV., who actually condescended to pass some days there), 
and to Trim — of which the name occurs so often in Swift's Journals, 
and where stands an enormous old castle that was inhabited by 
Prince John. It was taken from him by an Irish chief, our guide 
said ; and from the Irish chief it was taken by Oliver Cromwell. 
O'Thuselah was the Irish chief's name no doubt. 

Here too stands, in the midst of one of the most wretched 
towns in Ireland, a pillar erected in honour of the Duke of Wellington 
by the gentry of his native county. His birthplace, Dangan, lies 
not far off. And as we saw the hero's statue, a flight of birds had 
hovered about it : there was one on each epaulette and two on his 
marshal's staff. Besides these wonders, we saw a certain number 
of beggars ; and a madman, who was walking round a mound and 
preaching a sermon on grace ; and a little child's funeral came 
passing through the dismal town, the only stirring thing in it (the 
coffin was laid on a one-horse country car — a little deal box, in which 
the poor child lay — and a great troop of people followed the humble 
procession) ; and the inn-keeper, who had caught a few stray gentle- 
folk in a town where travellers must be rare ; and in his inn — which is 
more gaunt and miserable than the town itself, and which is by no 
means rendered more cheerful because sundry theological works are 
left for the rare frequenters in the coffee-room— the inn-keeper 
brought in a bill which would have been worthy of Long's, and which 
was paid with much grumbling on both sides. 

It would not be a bad rule for the traveller in Ireland to avoid 
those inns where theological works are left in the coffee-room. He 
is pretty sure to be made Jto pay very dearly for these religious 
privileges. 

We waited for the coach at the beautiful lodge and gate of Anns- 
brook ; and one of the sons of the house coming up, invited us to 
look at the domain, which is as pretty and neatiy ordered as — as any 



NANNY'S WATER. 261 

in England. It is hard to use this comparison so often, and must 
make Irish hearers angry. Can't one see a neat house and grounds 
without instantly- thinking that they are worthy of the sister country ; 
and implying, in our cool way, its superiority to everywhere else ? 
Walking in this gentleman's grounds, I told him, in the simplicity of 
my heart, that the neighbouring country was like Warwickshire, and 
the grounds as good as any English park. Is it the fact that English 
grounds are superior, or only that Englishmen are disposed to con- 
sider them so ? 

A pretty little twining river, called the Nanny's Water, runs through 
the park : there is a legend about that, as about other places. Once 
upon a time (ten thousand years ago),. Saint Patrick being thirsty as 
he passed by this country, came to the house of an old woman, of 
whom he asked a drink of milk. The old woman brought it to his 
reverence with the best of welcomes, and .... here it is a great 
mercy that the Belfast mail comes up, whereby the reader is spared 
the rest of the history. 

The Belfast mail had only to carry us five miles to Drogheda, 
but, in revenge, it made us pay three shillings* for the five miles ; and 
again, by way of compensation, it carried us over five miles of a 
country that was worth at least five shillings to see — not romantic or 
especially beautiful, but having the best of all beauty — a quiet, smiling, 
prosperous, unassuming work-day look, that in views and landscapes 
most good judges admire. Hard by Nanny's Water, we came to 
Duleek Bridge, where, I was told, stands an old residence of the I)e 
Dath family, who were, moreover, builders of the picturesque old 
bridge. 

The road leads over a wide green common, which puts one in 

mind of Eng (a plague on it, there is the comparison again ! ), 

and at the end of the common lies the village among trees : a 
beautiful and peaceful sight. In the background there was a tall, 
ivy-covered old tower, looking noble and imposing, but a ruin and 
useless ; then there was a church, and next to it a chapel— the very 
same sun was shining upon both. The chapel and church were 
connected by a farm-yard, and a score of golden ricks were in the 
background, the churches in unison, and the people (typified by the 
corn-ricks) flourishing at the feet of both. May one ever hope to see 
the day in Ireland when this little landscape allegory shall find a 
general application ? 



262 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

For some way after leaving Duleek the road and the country 
round continue to wear the agreeable, cheerful look just now lauded. 
You pass by a house where James II. is said to have slept the night 
before the battle of the Boyne (he took care to sleep far enough off 
on the night after), and also by an old red-brick hall standing at the 
end of an old chace or terrace-avenue, that runs for about a mile 
down to the house, and finishes at a moat towards the road. But as 
the coach arrives near Drogheda, and in the boulevards of that town, 
all resemblance to England is lost. Up hill and down, we pass low 
rows of filthy cabins in dirty undulations. Parents are at the cabin- 
doors dressing the hair of ragged children ; shock-heads of girls peer 
out from the black circumference of smoke, and children incon- 
ceivably filthy yell wildly and vociferously as the coach passes by. 
One little ragged savage rushed furiously up the hill, speculating upon 
permission to put on the drag-chain at descending, and hoping for a 
halfpenny reward. He put on the chain, but the guard did not give 
a halfpenny. I flung him one, and the boy rushed wildly after the 
carriage, holding it up with joy. " The man inside has given me 
one," says he, holding' it up exultingly to the guard. I flung out 
another (by-the-by, and without any prejudice, the halfpence in 
Ireland are smaller than those of England), but when the child got 
this halfpenny, small as it was, it seemed to overpower him : the little 
man's look of gratitude was worth a great deal more than the biggest 
penny ever struck. 

The town itself, which I had three-quarters of an hour to ramble 
through, is smoky, dirty, and lively. There was a great bustle in the 
black Main Street, and several good shops, though some of the houses 
were in a half state of ruin, and battered shutters closed many of the 
windows where formerly had been " emporiums," " repositories," and 
other grandly-titled abodes of small commerce. Exhortations to 
" repeal " were liberally plastered on the blackened walls, proclaiming 
some past or promised visit of the " great agitator." From the bridge 
is a good bustling spectacle of the river and the craft ; the quays 
were grimy with the discharge of the coal-vessels that lay alongside 
them ; the warehouses were not less black ; the seamen and porters 
loitering on the quay were as swarthy as those of Puddledock ; 
numerous factories and chimneys were vomiting huge clouds of black 
smoke : the commerce of the town is stated by the Guide-book to be 
considerable, and increasing of late years. Of one part of its manu- 



THE " GREAT MERCY" AT DROGHEDA. 263 

factures every traveller must speak with gratitude — of the ale namely, 
which is as good as the best brewed in the sister kingdom. Drogheda 
ale is to be drunk all over Ireland in the bottled state : candour calls 
for the acknowledgment that it is equally praiseworthy in draught. 
And while satisfying himself of this fact, the philosophic observer 
cannot but ask why ale should not be as good elsewhere as at Drog- 
heda : is the water of the Boyne the only water in Ireland whereof 
ale can be made ? 

Above the river and craft, and the smoky quays of the town, the 
hills rise abruptly, up which innumerable cabins clamber. On one of 
them, by a church, is a round tower, or fort, with a flag : the church 
is the successor of one battered down by Cromwell in 1649, in his 
frightful siege of the place. The place of one of his batteries is still 
marked outside the town, and known as " Cromwell's Mount : " 
here he " made the breach assaultable, and, by the help of God, 
stormed it." He chose the strongest point of the defence for 
his attack. 

After being twice beaten back, by the divine assistance he was 
enabled to succeed in a third assault : he "knocked on the head" all 
the officers of the garrison ; he gave orders that none of the men 
should be spared. " I think," says he, " that night we put to the 
sword two thousand men ; and one hundred of them having taken 
possession of St. Peter's steeple and a round tower next the gate, 
called St. Sunday's, I ordered the steeple of St. Peter's to be fired, 
when one in the flames was heard to say, ' God confound me, I 
burn, I burn ! ' " The Lord General's history of " this great mercy 
vouchsafed to us " concludes with appropriate religious reflections : 
and prays Mr. Speaker of the House of Commons to remember 
that " it is good that God alone have all the glory." Is not the 
recollection of this butchery almost enough to make an Irishman 
turn rebel ? 

When troops marched over the bridge, a young friend of mine 
(whom I shrewdly suspected to be an Orangeman in his heart) told 
me that their bands played the " Boyne Water." Here is another 
legend of defeat for the Irishman to muse upon ; and here it was, 
too, that King Richard II. received the homage of four Irish kings, 
who flung their skenes or daggers at his feet and knelt to him, and 
were wonder-stricken by the riches of his tents and the garments 
of his knights and ladies. I think it is in Lingard that the story 



264 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

is told ; and the antiquarian has no doubt seen that beautiful old 
manuscript at the British Museum where these yellow-mantled 
warriors are seen riding down to the King, splendid in his forked 
beard, and peaked shoes, and long dangling scolloped sleeves and 
embroidered gown. 

The Boyne winds picturesquely round two sides of the town, and 
following it, we came to the Linen Hall, — in the days of the linen 
manufacture a place of note, now the place where Mr. O'Connell 
harangues the people ; but all the windows of the house were barri- 
caded when we passed it, and of linen or any other sort of mer- 
chandise there seemed to be none. Three boys were running past 
it with a mouse tied to a string and a dog galloping after ; two 
little children were paddling down the street, one saying to the 
other, " Once I had a halfpenny, and bought apples with it." The 
barges were lying lazily on the river, on the opposite side of which 
was a wood of a gentleman's domain, over which the rooks Avere 
cawing ; and by the shore were some ruins — " where Mr. Ball once 
had his kennel of hounds " — touching reminiscence of former 
prosperity ! 

There is a very large and ugly Roman Catholic chapel in the town, 
and a smaller one of better construction : it was so crowded, how- 
ever, although on a week-day, that we could not pass beyond the 
chapel-yard — where were great crowds of people, some praying, some 
talking, some buying and selling. There were two or three stalls in 
the yard, such as one sees near continental churches, presided over 
by old women, with a store of^ little brass crucifixes, beads, books, 
and be'nitiers for the faithful to purchase. The church is large and 
commodious within, and looks (not like all other churches in 
Ireland) as if it were frequented. There is a hideous stone monu- 
ment in the churchyard representing two corpses half rotted 
away : time or neglect had battered away the inscription, nor 
could we see the dates of some older tombstones in the ground, 
which were mouldering away in the midst of nettles and rank grass 
on the wall. 

By a large public school of some reputation, where a hundred 
boys were educated (my young guide the Orangeman was one of 
them : he related with much glee how, on one of the Liberator's 
visits, a schoolfellow had waved a blue and orange flag from the 
window and cried, " King William for ever, and to hell with the 



A BEGGAR-WOMAN'S WIT. 265 

Pope ! "), there is a fine old gate leading to the river, and in excellent 
preservation, in spite of time and Oliver Cromwell. It is a good 
specimen of Irish architecture. By this time that exceedingly slow 
coach the " Newry Lark " had arrived at that exceedingly filthy inn 
where the mail had dropped us an hour before. An enormous 
Englishman was holding a vain combat of wit with a brawny, grinning 
beggar-woman at the door. " There's a clever gentleman," says the 
beggar-woman. " Sure he'll give me something." " How much 
should you like?" says the Englishman, with playful jocularity. 
" Musha," says she, " many a littler man nor you has given me 
a shilling." The coach drives away ; the lady had clearly, the best of 
the joking-match; but I did not see, for all that, that the Englishman 
gave her a single farthing. 

From Castle Bellingham — as famous for ale as Drogheda, and 
remarkable likewise for a still better thing than ale, an excellent 
resident proprietress, whose fine park lies by the road, and by whose 
care and taste the village has been rendered one of the most neat 
and elegant I have yet seen in Ireland — the road to Dundalk is 
exceedingly picturesque, and the traveller has the pleasure of feasting 
his eyes with the noble line of Mourne Mountains, which rise before 
him while he journeys over a level country for several miles. The 
" Newry Lark," to be sure, disdained to take advantage of the easy 
roads to accelerate its movements in any way ; but the aspect of the 
country is so pleasant that one can afford to loiter over it. The 
fields were yellow with the stubble of the corn — which in this, 
one of the chief corn counties of Ireland, had just been cut down ; 
and a long straggling line of neat farm-houses and cottages runs 
almost the whole way from Castle Bellingham to Dundalk. For 
nearly a couple of miles of the distance, the road runs along the 
picturesque flat called Lurgan Green ; and gentlemen's residences 
and parks are numerous along the road, and one seems to have 
come amongst a new race of people, so trim are the cottages, so neat 
the gates and hedges, in this peaceful, smiling district. The people, 
too, show signs of the general prosperity. A national-school has just 
dismissed its female scholars as we passed through Dunlar; and 
though the children had most of them bare feet, their clothes were 
good and clean, their faces rosy and bright, and their long hair as 
shiny and as nicely combed as young ladies' need to be. Numerous 
old castles and towers stand on the road here and there ; and long 



266 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

before we entered Dundalk we had a sight of a huge factory-chimney 
in the town, and of the dazzling white walls of the Roman Catholic 
church lately erected there. The cabin-suburb is not great, and the 
entrance to the town is much adorned by the hospital — a handsome 
Elizabethan building — and a row of houses of a similar architectural 
style which lie on the left of the traveller. 



( 267 ) 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

DUNDALK. 

The stranger can't fail to be struck with the look of Dundalk, as 
he has been with the villages and country leading to it, when con- 
trasted with places in the South and West of Ireland. The coach 
stopped at a cheerful-looking Place, of which almost the only 
dilapidated mansion was the old inn at which it discharged us, and 
which did not hold out much prospect of comfort. But in justice to 
the " King's Arms " it must be said that good beds and dinners are 
to be obtained there by voyagers ; and if they choose to arrive on 
days when his Grace the Most Reverend the Lord Archbishop of 
Armagh and Primate of Ireland is dining with his clergy, the house 
of course is crowded, and the waiters, and the boy who carries in the 
potatoes, a little hurried and flustered. When their reverences were 
gone, the laity were served ; and I have no doubt, from the leg of a 
duck which I got, that the breast and wings must have been very 
tender. 

Meanwhile the walk was pleasant through the bustling little 
town. A grave old church with a tall copper spire defends one end 
of the Main Street ; and a little way from the inn is the superb new 
chapel, which the architect, Mr. Duff, has copied from King's 
College Chapel in Cambridge. The ornamental part of the interior 
is not yet completed ; but the area of the chapel is spacious and 
noble, and three handsome altars of scagliola (or some composition 
resembling marble) have been erected, of handsome and suitable 
form. When by the aid of further subscriptions the church shall be 
completed, it will be one of the handsomest places of worship the 
Roman Catholics possess in this country. Opposite the chapel 
stands a neat low black building — the gaol : in the middle of the 
building, and over the doorway, is an ominous balcony and window, 
with an iron beam overhead. Each end of the beam is ornamented 
with a grinning iron skull ! - Is this the hanging-place ? and do 
these grinning cast-iron skulls facetiously explain the business for 



268 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

which the beam is there? For shame ! for shame ! Such disgusting 
emblems ought no longer to disgrace a Christian land. If kill we 
must, let us do so with as much despatch and decency as possible, 
— not brazen out our misdeeds and perpetuate them in this frightful 
satiric way. 

A far better cast-iron emblem stands over a handsome shop in the 
" Place " hard by — a plough namely, which figures over the factory of 
Mr. Shekelton, whose industry and skill seem to have brought the 
greatest benefit to his fellow-townsmen— of whom he employs 
numbers in his foundries and workshops. This gentleman was 
kind enough to show me through his manufactories, where all sorts 
of iron-works are made, from a steam-engine to a door-key; and I 
saw everything to admire, and a vast deal more than I could under- 
stand, in the busy, cheerful, orderly, bustling, clanging place. Steam- 
boilers were hammered here, and pins made by a hundred busy 
hands in a manufactory above. There was the engine-room, where 
the monster was whirring his ceaseless wheels and directing the whole 
operations of the factory, fanning the forges, turning the drills, 
blasting into the pipes of the smelting-houses : he had a house to 
himself, from which his orders issued to the different establishments 
round about. One machine was quite awful to me, a gentle cockney, 
not used to such things : it was an iron-devourer, a wretch with huge 
jaws and a narrow mouth, ever opening and shutting — opening and 
shutting. You put a half-inch iron plate between his jaws, and they 
shut not a whit slower or quicker than before, and bit through the 
iron as if it were a sheet of paper. Below the monster's mouth was 
a punch that performed its duties with similar dreadful calmness, 
going on its rising and falling. 

I was so lucky as to have an introduction to the Vicar of Dun- 
dalk, which that gentleman's kind and generous nature interpreted 
into a claim for unlimited hospitality ; and he was good enough to 
consider himself bound not only to receive me, but to give up 
previous engagements abroad in order to do so. I need not say that 
it afforded me sincere pleasure to witness, for a couple of days, his 
labours among his people ; and indeed it was a delightful occupation 
to watch both flock and pastor. The world is a wicked, selfish, 
abominable place, as the parson tells us ; but his reverence comes 
out of his pulpit and gives the flattest contradiction to his doctrine : 
busying himself with kind actions from morning till night, denying to 



DUNDALK CHURCH AND SCHOOLS. 269 

himself, generous to others, preaching the truth to young and old, 
clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, consoling the wretched, and 
giving hope to the sick ; — and I do not mean to say that this sort of 
life is led by the Vicar of Dundalk merely, but do firmly believe that 
it is the life of the great majority of the Protestant and Roman 
Catholic clergy of the country. There will be no breach of con- 
fidence, I hope, in publishing here the journal of a couple of days 
spent with one of these reverend gentlemen, and telling some readers, 
as idle and profitless as the writer, what the clergyman's peaceful 
labours are. 

In the first place, we set out to visit the church — the comfortable 
copper-spired old edifice that was noticed two pages back. It stands 
in a green churchyard of its own, very neat and trimly kept, with an 
old row of trees that were dropping their red leaves upon a flock of 
vaults and tombstones below. The building being much injured by 
flame and time, some hundred years back was repaired, enlarged, 
and ornamented — as churches in those days were ornamented — and 
has consequently lost a good deal of its Gothic character. There is 
a great mixture, therefore, of old style and new style and no style : 
but, with all this, the church is one of the most commodious and 
best appointed I have seen in Ireland. The vicar held a council 
with a builder regarding some ornaments for the roof of the church, 
which is, as it should be, a great object of his care and architectural 
taste, and on which he has spent a very large sum of money. To 
these expenses he is in a manner bound, for the living is a consider- 
able one, its income being no less than two hundred and fifty pounds 
a year ; out of which he has merely to maintain a couple of curates 
and a clerk and sexton, to contribute largely towards schools and 
hospitals, and relieve a few scores of pensioners of his own, who are 
fitting objects of private bounty. 

We went from the church to a school, which has been long a 
favourite resort of the good vicar's : indeed, to judge from the 
schoolmaster's books, his attendance there is almost daily, and the 
number of the scholars some two hundred. The number was con- 
siderably greater until the schools of the Educational Board were 
established, when the Roman Catholic clergymen withdrew many of 
their young people from Mr. Thackeray's establishment. 

We found a large room with sixty or seventy boys at work ; in an 
upper chamber were a considerable number of girls, with their 



=70 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

teachers, two modest and pretty young women; but the favourite 
resort of the vicar was evidently the Infant-School, — and no wonder : 
it is impossible to witness a more beautiful or touching sight. 

Eighty of these little people, healthy, clean, and rosy — some in 
smart gowns and shoes and stockings, some with patched pinafores 
and little bare pink feet — sate upon a half-dozen low benches, and 
were singing, at the top of their fourscore fresh voices, a song when 
we entered. All the voices were hushed as the vicar came in, and a 
great bobbing and curtseying took place ; whilst a hundred and sixty 
innocent eyes turned awfully towards the clergyman, who tried to 
look as unconcerned as possible, and began to make his little ones a 
speech. " I have brought," says he, " a gentleman from England, 
who has heard of my little children and their school, and hopes he 
will carry away a good account of it. Now, you know, we must all 
do our best to be kind and civil to strangers : what can we do here 
for this gentleman that he would like ?— do you think he would like 
a song?" 

(All the children) — " We'll sing to him ! " 

Then the schoolmistress, coming forward, sang the first words of 
a hymn, which at once eighty little voices took up, or near eighty — 
for some of the little things were too young to sing yet, and all they 
could do was to beat the measure with little red hands as the others 
sang. It was a hymn about heaven, with a chorus of " Oh that will 
be joyful, joyful," and one of the verses beginning, " Little children 
will be there." Some of my fair readers (if I have the honour to 
find such) who have been present at similar tender, charming concerts, 
know the hymn, no doubt. It was the first time I had ever heard it ; 
and I do not care to own that it brought tears to my eyes, though it 
is ill to parade such kind of sentiment in print. But I think I will 
never, while I live, forget that little chorus, nor would any man who 
has ever loved a child or lost one. God bless you, O little happy 
singers ! What a-noble and useful life is his, who, in place of seek- 
ing wealth or honour, devotes his life to such a service as this ! And 
all through our country, thank God ! in quiet humble corners, that 
busy citizens and men of the world never hear of, there are thousands 
of such men employed in such holy pursuits, with no reward beyond 
that which the fulfilment of duty brings them. Most of these 
children were Roman Catholics. At this tender age the priests do 
not care to separate them from their little Protestant brethren : and 



DUNDALK INFANT-SCHOOL. 



271 



no wonder. He must be a child-murdering Herod who would find 
the heart to do so. 

After the hymn, the children went through a little Scripture cate- 
chism, answering very correctly, and all in a breath, as the mistress 
put the questions. Some of them were, of course, too young to 
understand the words they uttered ; but the answers are so simple 
that they cannot fail to understand them before long ; and they learn 
in spite of themselves. 

The catechism being ended, another song was sung; and now 
the vicar (who had been humming the chorus along with his young 
singers, and, in spite of an awful and grave countenance, could not 
help showing his extreme happiness) made another oration, in which 
he stated that the gentleman from England was perfectly satisfied ; 
that he would have a good report of the Dundalk children to carry 
home with him ; that the day was very fine, and the schoolmistress 
would probably like to take a walk ; and, finally, would the young 
people give her a holiday? "As many," concluded he, "as will 
give the schoolmistress a holiday, hold up their hands ! " This ques- 
tion was carried unanimously. 




But I am bound to say, when the little people were told that as 
many as wouldn't like a holiday were to hold up their hands, all the 
little hands went up again exactly as before : by which it may be 
concluded either that the infants did not understand his reverence's 
speech, or that they were just as happy to stay at school as to go and 
play ; and the reader may adopt whichever of the reasons he inclines 
to. It is probable that both are correct. 



272 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

The little things are so fond of the school, the vicar told me a^ 
we walked away from it, that on returning home they like nothing 
better than to get a number of their companions who don't go to 
school, and to play at infant-school. 

They may be heard singing their hymns in the narrow alleys and 
humble houses in which they dwell : and I was told of one dying 
who sang his song of " Oh that will be joyful, joyful," to his poor 
mother weeping at his bedside, and promising her that they should 
meet where no parting should be. 

" There was a child in the school," said the vicar, " whose father, 
a 'Roman Catholic, was a carpenter by trade, a good workman, and 
earning a considerable weekly sum, but neglecting his wife and 
children and spending his earnings in drink. We have a song 
against drunkenness that the infants sing; and one evening, going 
home, the child found her father excited with liquor and ill-treating 
his wife. The little thing forthwith interposed between them, told 
her father what she had heard at school regarding the criminality of 
drunkenness and quarrelling, and finished her little sermon with the 
hymn. The father was first amused, then touched ; and the end of 
it was that he kissed his wife and asked her to forgive him, hugged 
his child, and from that day would always have her in his bed, made 
her sing to him morning and night, and forsook his old haunts for the 
sake of his little companion." 

He was quite sober and prosperous for eight months ; but the 
vicar at the end of that time began to remark that the child looked 
ragged at school, and passing by her mother's house, saw the poor 
woman with a black eye. " If it was any one but your husband, 

Mrs. C , who gave you that black eye," says the vicar, " tell me ; 

but if he did it, don't say a word." The woman was silent, and soon 
■ after, meeting her husband, the vicar took him to task. " You were 

sober for eight months. Now tell me fairly, C ," says he, " were 

you happier when you lived at home with your wife and child, or 
are you more happy now ? " The man owned that he was much 
happier formerly, and the end of the conversation was that he 
promised to go home once more and try the sober life again, and he 
went home and succeeded. 

The vicar continued to hear good accounts of him ; but passing 
one day by his house he saw the wife there looking very sad. " Had 
her husband relapsed ?" — " No, he was dead," she said — " dead of the 



THE COUNTY HOSPITAL, DUNDALK. 273 

cholera ; but he had been sober ever since his last conversation 
with the clergyman, and had done his duty to his family up to the 
time of his death." " I said to the woman," said the good old clergy- 
man, in a grave low voice, " ' Your husband is gone now to the place 
where, according to his conduct here, his eternal reward will be 
assigned him; and let us be thankful to think what a different 
position he occupies now to that which he must have held had not 
his little girl been the means under God of converting him.' " 

Our next walk was to the County Hospital, the handsome edifice 
which ornaments the Drogheda entrance of the town, and which I 
had remarked on my arrival. Concerning this hospital, the governors 
were, when I passed through Dundalk, in a state of no small agitation : 

for a gentleman by the name of- , who, from being an apothecary's 

assistant in the place, had gone forth as a sort of amateur inspector 
of hospitals throughout Ireland, had thought -fit to censure their 
extravagance in erecting the new building, stating that the old one 
was fully sufficient to hold fifty patients, and that the public money 

might consequently have been spared. Mr. 's plan for the 

better maintenance of them in general is, that commissioners should 
be appointed to direct them, and not county gentlemen as hereto- 
fore ; the discussion of which question does not need to be carried on 
in this humble work. 

My guide, who is one of the governors of the new hospital, con- 
ducted me in the first place to the old one — a small dirty house in 
a damp and low situation, with but three rooms to accommodate 
patients, and these evidently not fit to hold fifty, or even fifteen 
patients. The new hospital is one of the handsomest buildings of 
the size and kind in Ireland — an ornament to the town, as the angry 
commissioner stated, but not after all a building of undue cost, for 
the expense of its erection was but 3,000/. ; and the sick of the 
county are far better accommodated in it than in the damp and 
unwholesome tenement regretted by the eccentric commissioner. 

An English architect, Mr. Smith of Hertford, designed and com- 
pleted the edifice ; strange to say, only exceeding his estimates by 
the sum of three-and-sixpence, as the worthy governor of the hospital 
with great triumph told me. The building is certainly a wonder of 
cheapness, and, what is more, so complete for the purpose for which 
it was intended, and so handsome in appearance, that the architect's 
name deserves to be published by all who hear it ; and if any country- 

\6 



274 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

newspaper editors should notice this volume, they are requested to 
make the fact known. The house is provided with every convenience 
for men and women, with all the appurtenances of baths, water, gas, 
airy wards, and a garden for convalescents ; and, below, a dispensary, 
a handsome board-room, kitchen, and matron's apartments, &c. 
Indeed, a noble requiring a house for a large establishment need not 
desire a handsomer one than this, at its moderate price of 3,000/. 
The beauty of this building has, as is almost always the case, created 
emulation, and a terrace in the same taste has been raised in the 
neighbourhood of the hospital. 

From the hospital we bent our steps to the Institution ; of which 
place I give below the rules, and a copy of the course of study, and 
the dietary : leaving English parents to consider the fact, that their 
children can be educated at this place for thirteen pounds a year. 
Nor is there anything in the establishment savouring of the Dothe- 
boys Hall.* I never saw, in any public school in England, sixty 
cleaner, smarter, more gentlemanlike boys than were here at work. 
The upper class had been at work on Euclid as we came in, and 
were set, by way of amusing the stranger, to perform a sum of com- 
pound interest of diabolical complication, which, with its algebraic 
and arithmetic solution, was handed up to me by three or four of the 
pupils ; and I strove to look as wise as I possibly could. Then they 
went through questions of mental arithmetic with astonishing cor- 
rectness and facility ; and finding from the master that classics were 
not taught in the school, I took occasion to lament this circumstance, 
saying, with a knowing air, that I would like to have examined the 
lads in a Greek play. 

* " Boarders are received from the age of eight to fourteen at 12/. per annum, 
and 1/. for washing, paid quarterly in advance. 

"Day scholars are received from the age of ten to twelve at 2/., paid quarterly 
in advance. 

" The Incorporated Society have abundant cause for believing that the intro- 
duction of Boarders into their Establishments has produced far more advantageous 
results to the public than they could, at so early a period, have anticipated ; and 
that the election of boys to their Foundations only after a fair competition with 
others of a given district, has had the effect of stimulating masters and scholars to 
exertion and study, and promises to operate most beneficially for the advancement 
of religious and general knowledge. 

" The districts for eligible Candidates are as follow : — 

" Dundalk Institution embraces the counties of Louth ana Down, because the 
properties which support it lie in this district. [" The 



DUNDALK INSTITUTION. 



275 



Classics, then, these young fellows do not get. Meat they get 
but twice a week. Let English parents bear this fact in mind ; but 
that the lads are healthy and happy, anybody who sees them can 
have no question ; furthermore, they are well instructed in a sound 
practical education — history, geography, mathematics, religion. What 

' ' The Pococke Institution, Kilkenny, embraces the counties of Kilkenny and 
Waterford, for the same cause. 

"The Ranelagh Institution, the towns of Athlone and Roscommon, and three 
districts in the counties of Galway and Roscommon, which the Incorporated Society 
hold in fee, or from which they receive impropriate tithes. 

{Signed) " C^SAR OTWAY, Secretary.' 1 '' 



Arrangement of School Business in Dundalk Institution. 



Hours. 



Monday, Wednesday, 
and Friday. 



Tuesday and Thursday. 



Saturday. 



2j „ 

5 „ 

7i „ 
8 „ 

81 „ 

9 



«i 

12 
I 2 | 

2 

aj 

5 

7* 

8 
H 

9 



Rise, wash, &c. 
Scripture by the Master, 
. • and prayer. 
Reading, History, &c. 
Breakfast. 
Play. 

English Grammar. 
Algebra. 

Scripture. 

Writing. 
' Arithmetic at Desks, and 

Book-keeping. 
Dinner. 
Play. 
' Spelling, Mental Arith- 
metic, and Euclid. 
Supper. 
Exercise. 

Scripture by the Master, 
and prayer in School- 
room. 
Retire to bed. 



Rise, wash, &c. 

[ Scripture by the Master, 
I and Prayer. 

Reading, History, &c. 

Breakfast. 

Play. 

Geography. 

Euclid. 
I Lecture on principles of 
[ Arithmetic. 

Writing. 

Mensuration. 

Dinner. 
Play. 

' Spelling, Mental Arith- 
i metic, and Euclid. 
Supper. 
Exercise. 

Scripture by the Master, 
and prayer in School- 
room. 
Retire to bed. 



Rise, wash, &c. 
Scripture by the Master, 

and prayer. 
Reading, History, &c. 
Breakfast. 
Play. 

io to ii, Repetition. 

ii to 12, Use of Globes. 

12 to i, Catechism and 
Scripture by the Cate- 
chist. 

Dinner. 

The remainder of this day 
is devoted to exercise till 
the hour of Supper, after 
which the Boys assem- 
ble in the School-room 
and hear a portion of 
Scripture read and ex- 
plained by the Master, 
as on other days, and 
conclude with prayer. 



The sciences of Navigation and practical Surveying are taught in the Establishment, also a 
selection of the Pupils, who have a taste for it, are instructed in the art of Drawing. 



Dietary. 

Breakfast. — Stirabout and Milk, every Morning. 

Dinner. — On Sunday and Wednesday, Potatoes and Beef; io ounces of the latter to each 
boy. On Monday and Thursday, Bread and Broth ; ilb. of the former to each boy. On Tuesday, 
Friday, and Saturday, Potatoes and Milk ; 2ibs. of the former to each boy. 

Supper. — Ub. of Bread with Milk, uniformly, except on Monday and Thursday : on these 
days, Potatoes and Milk. 



276 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

a place to know of would this be for many a poor half-pay officer, 
where he may put his children in all confidence that they will be 
well cared for and soundly educated ! Why have we not State- 
schools in England, where, for the prime cost — for a sum which 
never need exceed for a young boy's maintenance 25/. a year — our 
children might be brought up ? We are establishing national-schools 
for the labourer : why not give education to the sons of the poor 
gentr y — the clergyman whose pittance is small, and would still give 
his son the benefit of a public education; the artist, the officer, 
the merchant's office-clerk, the literary man ? What a benefit might 
be conferred upon all of us if honest charter-schools could be 
established for our children, and where it would be impossible for 
Squeers to make a profit ! * 

Our next day's journey led us, by half-past ten o'clock, to the 
ancient town of Louth, a little poor village now, but a great seat of 
learning and piety, it is said, formerly, where there stood a univer- 
sity and abbeys, and where Saint Patrick worked wonders. Here 
my kind friend the rector was called upon to marry a smart 
sergeant of police to a pretty lass, one of the few Protestants who 
attend his church ; and, the ceremony over, we were invited to the 
house of the bride's father hard by, where the clergyman was bound 
to cut the cake and drink a glass of wine to the health of the new- 
married couple. There Avas evidently to be a dance and some 
merriment in the course of the evening ; for the good mother of the 
bride (oh, blessed is he who haS a good mother-in-law !) was busy 
at a huge fire in the little kitchen, and along the road we met 
various parties of neatly-dressed people, and several of the sergeant's 
comrades, who were hastening to the wedding. The mistress of the 
• rector's darling Infant-School was one of the bridesmaids : conse- 
quently the little ones had a holiday. 

But he was not to be disappointed of his Infant-School in this 
manner : so, mounting the car again, with a fresh horse, we went a 
very pretty drive of three miles to the snug lone school-house of 

* The Proprietary Schools of late established have gone far to protect the 
interests of parents and children ; but the masters of these schools take boarders, 
and of course draw profits from them. Why make the learned man a beef-and- 
mutton contractor ? It would be easy to arrange the economy of a school so that 
there should be no possibility of a want of confidence, or of peculation, to the 
detriment of the pupil. 



LOUTH. 277 

Glyde Farm — near a handsome park, I believe of the same name, 
where the proprietor is building a mansion of the Tudor order. 

The pretty scene of Dundalk was here played over again : the 
children sang their little hymns, the good old clergyman joined 
delighted in the chorus, the holiday was given, and the little hands 
held up, and I looked at more clean bright faces and little rosy feet. 
The scene need not be repeated in print, but I can understand 
what pleasure a man must take in the daily witnessing of it, and 
in the growth of these little plants, which are set and tended by his 
care. As we returned to Louth, a woman met us with a curtsey 
and expressed her sorrow that she had been obliged to withdraw her 
daughter from one of the rector's schools, which the child was vexed 
at leaving too. But the orders of the priest were peremptory ; and 
who can say they were unjust ? The priest, on his side, was only 
enforcing the rule which the parson maintains as his : — the latter will 
not permit his young flock to be educated except upon certain 
principles and by certain teachers ; the former has his own scruples 
unfortunately also — and so that noble and brotherly scheme of 
National Education falls to the ground. In Louth, the national- 
school was standing by the side of the priest's chapel : it is so almost 
everywhere throughout Ireland: the Protestants have rejected, on 
4 very good motives doubtless, the chance of union which the Educa- 
tion Board gave them. Be it so ! if the children of either sect be 
educated apart, so that they be educated, the education scheme will 
have produced its good, and the union will come afterwards. 

The church at Louth stands boldly upon a hill looking down on 
the village, and has nothing remarkable in it but neatness, except the 
monument of a former rector, Dr. Little, which attracts the spec- 
tator's attention from the extreme inappropriateness of the motto 
on the coat-of-arms of the reverend defunct. It looks rather unor- 
thodox to read in a Christian temple, where a man's bones have the 
honour to lie — and where, if anywhere, humility is requisite — that 
there is multum in Parvo : " a great deal in Little." O Little, in life 
you were not much, and lo ! you are less now ; why should filial 
piety engrave that pert pun upon your monument, to cause people to 
laugh in a place where they ought to be grave? The defunct doctor 
built a very handsome rectory-house, with a set of stables that would 
be useful to a nobleman,, but are rather too commodious for a 
peaceful rector who does not ride to hounds; and it was in Little'' 



278 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

time, I believe, that the church was removed from the old abbey, 
where it formerly stood, to its present proud position on the hill. 

The abbey is a fine ruin, the windows of a good style, the tracings 
of carvings on many of them ; but a great number of stones and 
ornaments were removed formerly to build farm-buildings withal, 
and the place is now as rank and ruinous as the generality of Irish 
burying-places seem to be. Skulls lie in clusters amongst nettle- 
beds by the abbey-walls ; graves are only partially covered with rude 
stones j a fresh coffin was lying broken in pieces within the abbey ; 
and the surgeon of the dispensary hard by might procure subjects 
here almost without grave-breaking. Hard by the abbey is a 
building of which I beg leave to offer the following interesting 
sketch. 




The legend in the country goes that the place was built for the 
accommodation of " Saint Murtogh," who lying down to sleep here 
in the open fields, not having any place to house under, found to his 
surprise, on waking in the morning, the above edifice, which the 
angels had built. The angelic architecture, it will be seen, is of 
rather a rude kind ; and the village antiquary, who takes a pride in 
showing the place, says that the building was erected two thousand 
years ago. In the handsome grounds of the rectory is another spot 
visited by popular tradition — a fairy's ring : a regular mound of some 
thirty feet in height, flat and even on the top, and provided with a 
winding path for the foot-passengers to ascend. Some trees grew on 
the mound, one of which was removed in order to make the walk. 
But the country-people cried out loudly at this desecration, and 
vowed that the " little people " had quitted the countryside for ever 
in consequence. 

While walking in the town, a woman meets the rector with a 
number of curtsies and compliments, and vows that " 'tis your rever- 
ence is the friend of the poor, and may the Lord preserve you to us 
and lady;" and having poured out blessings innumerable, concludes 



A PETITIONER. 279 

by producing a paper for her son that's in throuble in England. 
The paper ran to the effect that " We, the undersigned, inhabitants 
of the parish of Louth, have known Daniel Horgan ever since his 
youth, and can speak confidently as to his integrity, piety, and good 
conduct." In fact, the paper stated that Daniel Horgan was an 
honour to his country, and consequently quite incapable of the 
crime of — sack-stealing I think — with which at present he was charged, 
and lay in prison in Durham Castle. The paper had, I should 
think, come down to the poor mother from Durham, with a direction 
ready written to despatch it back again when signed, and was 
evidently the work of one of those benevolent individuals in assize- 
towns, who, following the profession of the law, delight to extricate 
unhappy young men of whose innocence (from various six-and- 
eightpenny motives) they feel convinced. There stood the poor 
mother, as the rector examined the document, with a huge wafer 
in her hand, ready to forward it so soon as it was signed : for 
the truth is that " We, the undersigned," were as yet merely 
imaginary. 

"You don't come to church," says the rector. "I know nothing 
of you or your son : why don't you go to the priest ? " 

" Oh, your reverence, my son's to be tried next Tuesday," 
whimpered the woman. She then said the priest was not in the way, 
but, as we had seen him a few minutes before, recalled the assertion, 
and confessed that she had been to the priest and that he would 
not sign ; and fell to prayers, tears, and unbounded supplications to 
induce the rector to give his signature. But that hard-hearted divine, 
stating that he had not known Daniel Horgan from his youth upwards, 
that he could not certify as to his honesty or dishonesty, enjoined the 
woman to make an attempt upon the R, C. curate, to whose hand- 
writing he would certify if need were. 

The upshot of the matter was that the woman returned with a 
certificate from the R. C. curate as to her son's good behaviour 
while in the village, and the rector certified that the hand-writing was 
that of the R. C. clergyman in question, and the woman popped her 
big red wafer into the letter and went her way. 

Tuesday is passed long ere this : Mr. Horgan's guilt or innocence 
is long since clearly proved, and he celebrates the latter in freedom, 
or expiates the former at the mill. Indeed, I don't know that there 
was any call to introduce his adventures to the public, except perhaps 



280 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

it may be good to see how in this little distant Irish village the 
blood of life is running. Here goes a happy party to a marriage, and 
the parson prays a " God bless you ! " upon them, and the world 
begins for them. Yonder lies a stall-fed rector in his tomb, flaunting 
over his nothingness his pompous heraldic motto : and yonder lie the 
fresh fragments of a nameless deal coffin, which any foot may kick 
over. Presently you hear the clear voices of little children praising 
God ; and here comes a mother wringing her hands and asking for 
succour for her lad, who was a child but the other day. Such motus 
animorum atque hcec certamina tanta are going on in an hour of an 
October day in a little pinch of clay in the county Louth. 

Perhaps, being in the moralizing strain, the honest surgeon at 
the dispensary might come in as an illustration. He inhabits a neat 
humble house, a storey higher than his neighbours', but with a thatched 
roof. He relieves a thousand patients yearly at the dispensary, he 
visits seven hundred in the parish, he supplies the medicines gratis ; 
and receiving for these services the sum of about one hundred pounds 
yearly, some county economists and calculators are loud against the 
extravagance Of his salary, and threaten his removal. All these 
individuals and their histories we presently turn our backs upon, for, 
after all, dinner is at five o'clock, and we have to see the new road 
to Dundalk, which the county has lately been making. 

Of this undertaking, which shows some skilful engineering — some 
gallant cutting of rocks and hills, and filling of valleys, with a tall and 
handsome stone bridge thrown across the river, and connecting the 
high embankments on which the new road at that place is formed — 
I can say little, except that it is a vast convenience to the county, and 
a great credit to the surveyor and contractor too ; for the latter, 
though a poor man, and losing heavily by his bargain, has yet refused 
.to mulct his labourers of their wages ; and, as cheerfully as he can, 
still pays them their shilling a day. 



( 28! ) 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

NEWRY, ARMAGH, BELFAST — FROM DUNDALK TO NEWRY. 

My kind host gave orders to the small ragged boy that drove the 
car to take " particular care of the little gentleman ; " and the car- 
boy, grinning in appreciation of the joke, drove off at his best pace, 
and landed his cargo at Newry after a pleasant two hours' drive. 
The country for the most part is wild, but not gloomy ; the mountains 
round about are adorned with woods and gentlemen's seats ; and the 
car-boy pointed out one hill — that of Slievegullion, which kept us 
company all the way — as the highest hill in Ireland. Ignorant or 
deceiving car-boy ! I have seen a dozen hills, each the highest in 
Ireland, in my way through the country, of which the inexorable 
Guide-book gives the measurement and destroys the claim. Well, 
it was the tallest hill, in the estimation of the car-boy ; and in this 
repect the world is full of car-boys. Has not every mother of a family 
a Slievegullion of a son, who, according to her measurement, towers 
above all other sons? Is not the patriot, who believes himself equal 
to three Frenchmen, a car-boy in heart ? There was a kind young 
creature, with a child in her lap, that evidently held this notion. She 
paid the child a series of compliments, which would have led one to 
fancy he was an angel from heaven at the least ; and her husband 
sat gravely by, very silent, with his arms round a barometer. 

Beyond these there were no incidents or characters of note, except 
an old ostler that they said was ninety years old, and watered the 
horse at a lone inn on the road. " Stop ! " cries this wonder of 
years and rags, as the car, after considerable parley, got under weigh. 
The car-boy pulled up, thinking a fresh passenger was coming out of 
the inn. 

" Stop, till one of the gentlemen gives me something" says the old 
man, coming slowly up with us : which speech created a laugh, and 
got him a penny : he received it without the least thankfulness, and 
went away grumbling to his pail. 

Newry is remarkable as being the only town I have seen which 



282 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

had no cabin suburb : strange to say, the houses begin all at once, 
handsomely coated and hatted with stone and slate ; and if Dundalk 
was prosperous, Nevvry is better still. Such a sight of neatness and 
comfort is exceedingly welcome to an English traveller, who, more- 
over, finds himself, after driving through a plain bustling clean street, 
landed at a large plain comfortable inn, where business seems to be 
done, where there are smart waiters to receive him, and a comfortable 
warm coffee-room that bears no traces of dilapidation. 

What the merits of the cuisine may be I can't say for the informa- 
tion of travellers ; a gentleman to whom I had brought a letter from 
Dundalk taking care to provide me at his own table, accompanying 
me previously to visit the lions of the town. A river divides it, and 
the counties of Armagh and Down : the river runs into the sea at 
Carlingford Bay, and is connected by a canal with Lough Neagh, and 
thus with the North of Ireland. Steamers to Liverpool and Glasgow 
sail continually. There are mills, foundries, and manufactories, of 
which the Guide-book will give particulars ; and the town of 13,000 
inhabitants is the busiest and most thriving that I have yet seen in 
Ireland. 

Our first walk was to the church : a large and handsome building, 
although built in the unlucky period when the Gothic style was 
coming into vogue. Hence one must question the propriety of many 
of the ornaments, though the whole is massive, well-finished, and 
stately. Near the church stands the Roman Catholic chapel, a very 
fine building, the work of the same architect, Mr. Duff, who erected 
the chapel at Dundalk ; but, like almost all other edifices of the kind 
in Ireland that I have seen, the interior is quite unfinished, and 
already so dirty and ruinous, that one would think a sort of genius 
for dilapidation must have been exercised in order to bring it to ifs 
present condition. There are tattered green-baize doors to enter at, 
a dirty clay floor, and cracked plaster walls, with an injunction to the 
public not to spit on the floor. Maynooth itself is scarcely more 
dreary. The architect's work, however, does him the highest credit : 
the interior of the church is noble and simple in style ; and one can't 
but grieve to see a fine work of art, that might have done good to 
the country, so defaced and ruined as this is. 

The Newry poor-house is as neatly ordered and comfortable as 
any house, public or private, in Ireland : the same look of health 
which was so pleasant to see among the Naas children of the union- 



NEW RY— ARMAGH. 283 

house was to be remarked here : the same care and comfort for the 
old people. Of able-bodied there were but few in the house : it is 
in winter that there are most applicants for this kind of relief; the 
sunshine attracts the women out of the place, and the harvest relieves 
it of the men. Cleanliness, the matron said, is more intolerable to 
most of the inmates than any other regulation of the house; and 
instantly on quitting the house they relapse into their darling dirt, 
and of course at their periodical return are -subject to the unavoidable 
initiatory lustration. 

Newry has many comfortable and handsome public buildings : 
the streets have a business-like look, the shops and people are not 
too poor, and the southern grandiloquence is not shown here in the 
shape of fine words for small wares. Even the beggars are not so 
numerous, I fancy, or so coaxing and wheedling in their talk. 
Perhaps, too, among the gentry, the same moral change may be 
remarked, and they seem more downright and plain in their 
manner ; but one must not pretend to speak of national charac- 
teristics from such a small experience as a couple of evenings' 
intercourse may give. 

Although not equal in natural beauty to a hundred other routes 
which the traveller takes in the South, the ride from Newry to 
Armagh is an extremely pleasant one, on account of the undeniable 
increase of prosperity which is visible through the country. Well- 
tilled fields, neat farm-houses, well-dressed people, meet one every- 
where, and people and landscape alike have a plain, hearty, flourishing 
look. 

The greater part of Armagh has the aspect of a good stout old 
English town, although round about the steep on which the cathedral 
stands (the Roman Catholics have taken possession of another hill, 
and are building an opposition cathedral on this eminence) there 
are some decidedly Irish streets, and that dismal combination of 
house and pigsty which is so common in Munster and Connaught. 

But the main streets, though not fine, are bustling, substantial, 
and prosperous ; and a fine green has some old trees and some good 
houses, and even handsome stately public buildings, round about it, 
that remind one of a comfortable cathedral city across the water. 

The cathedral service is more completely performed here than in 
any English town, I think. The church is small, but extremely neat, 
fresh and handsome — almost too handsome ; covered with spick-and- 



284 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

span gilding and carved-work in the style of the thirteenth century : 
every pew as smart and well-cushioned as my lord's own seat in the 
country church ; and for the clergy and their chief, stalls and thrones 
quite curious for their ornament and splendour. The Primate with 
his blue riband and badge (to whom the two clergymen bow reverently 
as, passing between them, he enters at the gate of the altar rail) looks 
like a noble Prince of the Church ■ and I had heard enough of his 
magnificent charity and kindness to look with reverence at his lofty 
handsome features. 

Will it be believed that the sermon lasted only for twenty 
minutes ? Can this be Ireland ? I think this wonderful circum- 
stance impressed me more than any other with the difference between 
North and South, and, having the Primate's own countenance for 
the opinion, may confess a great admiration for orthodoxy in this 
particular. 

A beautiful monument to Archbishop Stuart, by Chantrey ; a 
magnificent stained window, containing the arms of the clergy of the 
diocese (in the very midst of which I was glad to recognize the sober 
old family coat of the kind and venerable rector of Louth), and 
numberless carvings and decorations, will please the lover of church 
architecture here. I must confess, however, that in my idea the 
cathedral is quite too complete. It is of the twelfth century, but not 
the least venerable. It is as neat and trim as a lady's drawing-room. 
It wants a hundred years at least to cool the raw colours of the 
stones, and to dull the brightness of the gilding : all which benefits, 
no doubt, time will bring to pass, and future Cockneys setting off 
from London Bridge after breakfast in an aerial machine may come 
to hear the morning service here, and not remark the faults which 
have struck a too susceptible tourist, of the nineteenth century. 

Strolling round the town after service, I saw more decided signs 
that Protestantism was there in the ascendant. I saw no less than 
three different ladies on the prowl, dropping religious tracts at 
various doors ; and felt not a little ashamed to be seen by one of 
them getting into a car with bag and baggage, being bound for 
Belfast. 

The ride of ten miles from Armagh to Portadown was not the 
prettiest, but one of the pleasantest drives I have had in Ireland, 
for the country is well cultivated along the whole of the road, the 



ULSTER PEASANTRY. 285 

trees in plenty, and villages and neat houses always in sight. The 
little farms, with their orchards and comfortable buildings, were as 
clean and trim as could be wished : they are mostly of one storey, 
with long thatched roofs and shining windows, such as those that 
may be seen in Normandy and Picardy. As it was Sunday evening, 
all the people seemed to be abroad, some sauntering quietly down 
the roads, a pair of girls here and there pacing leisurely in a field, 
a little group seated under the trees of an orchard, which pretty 
adjunct to the farm, is very common in this district ; and the crop of 
apples seemed this year to be extremely plenty. The physiognomy 
of the people too has quite changed : the girls have their hair neatly 
braided up, not loose over their faces as in the south ; and not only 
are bare feet very rare, and stockings extremely neat and white, but 
I am sure I saw at least a dozen good silk gowns upon the women 
along the road, and scarcely one which was not clean and in good 
order. The men for the most part figured in jackets, caps, and 
trousers, eschewing the old well of a hat which covers the popular 
head at the other end of the island, the breeches, and the long ill- 
made tail-coat. The people's faces are sharp and neat, not broad, 
lazy, knowing-looking, like that of many a shambling Diogenes who 
may be seen lounging before his cabin in Cork or Kerry. As for the 
cabins, they have disappeared ; and the houses of the people may 
rank decidedly as cottages. The accent, too, is quite different ; but 
this is hard to describe in print. The people speak with a Scotch 
twang, and, as I fancied, much more simply and to the point. A 
man gives you a downright answer, without any grin or joke, or 
attempt at flattery. To be sure, these are rather early days to begin to 
judge of national characteristics ; and very likely the above distinc- 
tions have been drawn after profoundly studying a Northern and a 
Southern waiter at the inn at Armagh. 

At any rate, it is clear that the towns are vastly improved, the 
cottages and villages no less so ; the people look active and well- 
dressed ; a sort of weight seems all at once to be taken from the 
Englishman's mind on entering the province, when he finds himself 
once more looking upon comfort and activity, and resolution. What 
is the cause of this improvement ? Protestantis7n is, more than one 
Church-of-England man said to me ; but, for Protestantism, would 
it not be as well to read Scotchism? — meaning thrift, prudence, 
perseverance, boldness, and common sense : with which qualities 



286 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

any body of men, of any Christian denomination, would no doubt 
prosper. 

The little brisk town of Portadown, with its comfortable unpre- 
tending houses, its squares and market-place, its pretty quay, with 
craft along the river, — a steamer building on the dock, close to 
mills and warehouses that look in a full state of prosperity, — was 
a pleasant conclusion to this ten miles' drive, that ended at the 
newly opened railway-station. The distance hence to Belfast is 
twenty-five miles ; Lough Neagh may be seen at one point of the line, 
and the Guide-book says that the station-towns of Lurgan and 
Lisburn are extremely picturesque ; but it was night when I passed 
by them, and after a journey of an hour and a quarter reached Belfast. 

That city has been discovered by another eminent Cockney 
traveller (for though born in America, the dear old Bow-bell blood 
must run in the veins of Mr. N. P. Willis), and I have met, in the 
periodical works of the country, with repeated angry allusions to his 
description of Belfast, the pink heels of the chamber-maid who con- 
ducted him to bed (what business had he to be looking at the young 
woman's legs at all ?) and his wrath at the beggary of the town 
and the laziness of the inhabitants, as marked by a line of dirt 
running along the walls, and showing where they were in the habit 
of lolling. 

These observations struck me as rather hard when applied to 
Belfast, though possibly pink heels and beggary might be remarked 
in other cities of the kingdom ; but the town of Belfast seemed to 
me really to be as neat, prosperous, and handsome a city as need be 
seen ; and, with respect to the inn, that in which I stayed, " Kearn's," 
was as comfortable and well-ordered an establishment as the most 
fastidious Cockney can desire, and with an advantage which Home 
people perhaps do not care for, that the dinners which cost seven 
shillings at London taverns are here served for half-a-crown ; but, 
I must repeat here, in justice to the public, what I stated to 
Mr. William the waiter, viz. that half a pint of port-wine does 
contain more than two glasses — at least it does in happy, happy 
England. . . Only, to be sure, here the wine is good, whereas the 
port-wine in England is not port, but for the most part an 
abominable drink of which it would be a mercy only to give us two 
glasses : which, however, is clearly wandering from the subject in 
hand. 



BELFAST. 287 

They call Belfast the Irish Liverpool. If people are for calling 
names, it would be better to call it the Irish London at once — the 
chief city of the kingdom at any rate. It looks hearty, thriving, and 
prosperous, as if it had money in its pockets and roast-beef for 
dinner: it has no pretensions to fashion, but looks mayhap better in 
its honest broad-cloth than some people in their shabby brocade. The 
houses are as handsome as at Dublin, with this advantage, that the 
people seem to live in them. They have no attempt at ornament for 
the most part, but are grave, stout, red-brick edifices, laid out at four 
angles in orderly streets and squares. 

The stranger cannot fail to be struck (and haply a little frightened) 
by the great number of meeting-houses that decorate the town, and 
give evidence of great sermonizing on Sundays. These buildings do 
not affect the Gothic, like many of the meagre edifices of the 
Established and the Roman Catholic churches, but have a physi- 
ognomy of their own — a thick-set citizen look. Porticoes have they, 
to be sure, and ornaments Doric, Ionic, and what not? but the 
meeting-house peeps through all these classical friezes and entabla- 
tures ; and though one reads of " Imitations of the Ionic Temple of 
Ilissus, near Athens," the classic temple is made to assume a bluff, 
downright, Presbyterian air, which would astonish the original builder, 
doubtless. The churches of the Establishment are handsome 
and stately. The Catholics are building a brick cathedral, no 
doubt of the Tudor style : — the present chapel, flanked by the 
national-schools, is an exceedingly unprepossessing building of 
the Strawberry Hill or Castle of Otranto Gothic : the keys and 
mitre figuring in the centre — " The cross-keys and nightcap," 
as a hard-hearted Presbyterian called them to me, with his blunt 
humour. 

The three churches are here pretty equally balanced : Presby- 
terians 25,000, Catholics 20,000, Episcopalians 17,000. Each party 
has two or more newspaper organs ; and the wars between them 
are dire and unceasing, as the reader may imagine. For whereas in 
other parts of Ireland where Catholics and Episcopalians prevail, and 
the Presbyterian body is too small, each party has but one opponent 
to belabour : here the Ulster politician, whatever may be his way of 
thinking, has the great advantage of possessing two enemies on 
whom he may exercise his eloquence ; and in this triangular duel all 
do their duty nobly. Then there are subdivisions of hostility For 



288 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

the Church there is a High Church and a Low Church journal ; for the 
Liberals there is a " Repeal " journal and a " No-repeal " journal ; for 
the Presbyterians there are yet more varieties of journalistic opinion, 
on which it does not become a stranger to pass a judgment. If the 
Northern Whig says that the Banner of Ulster " is a polluted rag, 
which has hoisted the red banner of falsehood" (which elegant 
words may be found in the first-named journal of the 13th October), 
let us be sure the Banner has a compliment for the Northern 
Whig in return ; if the " Repeal " Vindicator and the priests attack 
the Presbyterian journals and the "home missions," the reverend 
gentlemen of Geneva are quite as ready with the pen as their 
brethren of Rome, and not much more scrupulous in their language 
than the laity. When I was in Belfast, violent disputes were raging 
between Presbyterian and Episcopalian Conservatives with regard to 
the Marriage Bill ; between Presbyterians and Catholics on the 
subject of the " home missions ; " between the Liberals and Conserva- 
tives, of course. " Thank God," for instance, writes a " Repeal " 
journal, "that the honour and power of Ireland are not involved in 
the disgraceful Afghan war !" — a sentiment insinuating Repeal and 
something more ; disowning, not merely this or that Ministry, but the 
sovereign and her jurisdiction altogether. But details of these 
quarrels, religious or political, can tend to edify but few readers out 
of the country. Even in it, as there are some nine shades of politico- 
religious differences, an observer pretending to impartiality must 
necessarily displease eight parties, and almost certainly the whole 
nine ; and the reader who desires to judge the politics of Belfast 
must study for himself. Nine journals, publishing four hundred 
numbers in a year, each number containing about as much as an 
octavo volume : these, and the back numbers of former years, 
sedulously read, will give the student a notion of the subject in 
question. And then, after having read the statements on either side, 
he must ascertain the truth of them, by which time more labour of 
the same kind will have grown upon him, and he will have attained 
a good old age. 

Amongst the poor, the Catholics and Presbyterians are said to go 
in a pretty friendly manner to the national-schools ; but among the 
Presbyterians themselves it appears there are great differences and 
quarrels, by which a fine institution, the Belfast Academy, seems to 
have suffered considerably. It is almost the only building in this 



BOOKS AND PICTURES. 289 

large and substantial place that bears, to the stranger's eye, an un- 
prosperous air. A vast building, standing fairly in the midst of a 
handsome green and place, and with snug, comfortable red-brick 
streets stretching away at neat right angles all around, the Presby- 
terian College looks handsome enough at a short distance, but on a 
nearer view is found in a woful state of dilapidation. It does not 
possess the supreme dirt and filth of Maynooth— that can but belong 
to one place, even in Ireland ; but the building is in a dismal state 
of unrepair, steps and windows broken, doors and stairs battered. 
Of scholars I saw but a few, and these were in the drawing academy. 
The fine arts do not appear as yet to flourish in Belfast. The models 
from which the lads were copying were not good : one was copying 
a bad copy of a drawing by Prout \ one was colouring a print. The 
ragged children in a German national-school have better models 
before them, and are made acquainted with truer principles of art 
and beauty. 

Hard by is the Belfast Museum, where an exhibition of pictures 
was in preparation, under the patronage of the Belfast Art Union. 
Artists in all parts of the kingdom had been invited to send their 
works, of which the Union pays the carriage ; and the porters and 
secretary were busy unpacking cases, in which I recognized some of 
the works which had before figured on the Avails of the London Exhi- 
bition rooms. 

The book-shops which I saw in this thriving town said much for 
the religious disposition of the Belfast public : there were numerous 
portraits of reverend gentlemen, and their works of every variety : — 
"The Sinner's Friend," "The Watchman on the Tower," "The 
Peep of Day," " Sermons delivered at Bethesda Chapel," by so-and 
so ; with hundreds of the neat little gilt books with bad prints, 
scriptural titles, and gilt edges, that come from one or two serious 
publishing houses in London, and in considerable numbers from the 
neighbouring Scotch shores. As for the theatre, with such a public 
the drama can be expected to find but little favour ; and the gentle- 
man who accompanied me in my walk, and to whom I am indebted 
for many kindnesses during my stay, said not only that he had never 
been in the playhouse, but that he never heard of any one going 
thither. I found out the place where the poor neglected Dramatic 
Muse of Ulster hid herself ;" and was of a party of six in the boxes, 
the benches of the pit being dotted over with about a score more. 

19 



290 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

Well, it was a comfort to see that the gallery was quite full, and 
exceedingly happy and noisy : they stamped, and stormed, and 
shouted, and clapped in a way that was pleasant to hear. One young 
god, between the acts, favoured the public with a song — extremely 
ill sung certainly, but the intention was everything ; and his brethren 
above stamped in chorus with roars of delight. 

As for the piece performed, it was a good old melodrama of the 
British sort, inculcating a thorough detestation of vice and a warm 
sympathy with suffering virtue. The serious are surely too hard upon 
poor play-goers. We never for a moment allow rascality to triumph 
beyond a certain part of the third act : we sympathize with the woes 
of young lovers — her in ringlets and a Polish cap, him in tights and 
a Vandyke collar ; we abhor avarice or tyranny in the person of " the 
first old man " with the white wig and red stockings, or of the villain 
with the roaring voice and black whiskers ; we applaud the honest 
wag (he is a good fellow in spite of his cowardice) in his hearty jests 
at the tyrant before mentioned ; and feel a kindly sympathy with all 
mankind as the curtain falls over all the characters in a group, of 
which successful love is the happy centre. Reverend gentlemen in 
meeting-house and church, who shout against the immoralities of this 
poor stage, and threaten all play-goers with the fate which is awarded 
to unsuccessful plays, should try and bear less hardly upon us. 

An artist — who, in spite of the Art Union, can scarcely, I should 
think, flourish in a place that seems devoted to preaching, politics, 
and trade — has somehow found his way to this humble little theatre, 
and decorated it with some exceedingly pretty scenery — almost the 
only indication of a taste for the fine arts which I have found as yet 
in the country. 

A fine night-exhibition in the town is that of the huge spinning- 
mills which surround it, and of which the thousand windows are 
lighted up at nightfall, and may be seen from almost all quarters of 
the city. 

A gentleman to whom I had brought an introduction good- 
naturedly left his work to walk with me to one of these mills, and 
stated by whom he had been introduced to me to the mill-proprietor, 
Mr. Mulholland. " That recommendation," said Mr. Mulholland 
gallantly, "is welcome anywhere." It was from my kind friend 
Mr. Lever. What a privilege some men have, who can sit quietly in 
their studies and make friends all the world over ! 



FLAX-SPINNING MILLS. 



291 



Here is the figure of a girl sketched in the place : there are 
nearly five hundred girls employed in it. They work in huge long 



ill 




chambers, lighted by numbers of windows, hot with steam, buzzing 
and humming with hundreds of thousands of whirling wheels, that all 
take their motion from a steam-engine which lives apart in a hot cast- 
iron temple of its own, from which it communicates with the innu- 
merable machines that the five hundred girls preside over. They 
have seemingly but to take away the work when done — the enormous 
monster in the cast-iron room does it all. He cards the flax, and 
combs it, and spins it, and beats it, and twists it : the five hundred 
girls stand by to feed him, or take the material from him, when he 
has had his will of it. There is something frightful in the vastness 
as in the minuteness of this power. Every thread writhes and twirls 
as the steam-fate orders it, — every thread, of which it would take a 
hundred to make the thickness of a hair. 

I have seldom, I think, seen more good looks than amongst the 
young women employed in this place. They work for twelve hours 
daily, in rooms of which the heat is intolerable to a stranger ; but in 
spite of it they looked gay, stout, and healthy ; nor were their forms 
much concealed by the very simple clothes they wear while in the mill. 



292 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

The stranger will be struck by the good looks not only of these 
spinsters, but of almost all the young women in the streets. I never 
saw a town where so many women are to be met — so many and so 
pretty — with and without bonnets, with good figures, in neat homely 
shawls and dresses. The grisettes of Belfast are among the hand- 
somest ornaments of it ; and as good, no doubt, and irreproachable in 
morals as their sisters in the rest of Ireland. 

Many of the merchants' counting-houses are crowded in little old- 
fashioned " entries," or courts, such as one sees about the Bank in 
London. In and about these, and in the principal streets in the 
daytime, is a great activity, and homely unpretending bustle. The 
men have a business look, too ; and one sees very few flaunting 
dandies, as in Dublin. The shopkeepers do not brag upon their 
signboards, or keep " emporiums," as elsewhere, — their places of 
business being for the most part homely ; though one may see some 
splendid shops, which are not to be surpassed by London. The 
docks and quays are busy with their craft and shipping, upon the 
beautiful borders of the Lough ; — the large red warehouses stretching 
along the shores, with ships loading, or unloading, or building, 
hammers clanging, pitch pots flaming and boiling, seamen cheering 
in the ships, or lolling lazily on the shore. The life and movement 
of a port here give the stranger plenty to admire and observe. And 
nature has likewise done everything for the place — surrounding it 
with picturesque hills and wster ■ — for which latter I must confess I 
was not very sorry to leave the town behind me, and its mills, and its 
meeting-houses, and its commerce, and its theologians, and its 
politicians. 




( 293 ) 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

BELFAST TO THE CAUSEWAY. 

The Lough of Belfast has a reputation for beauty almost as great as 
that of the Bay of Dublin ; but though, on the day I left Belfast for 
Lame, the morning was fine, and the sky clear and blue above, an 
envious mist lay on the water, which hid all its beauties from the 
dozen of passengers on the Larne coach. All we could see were 
ghostly-looking silhouettes of ships gliding here and there through the 
clouds ; and I am sure the coachman's remark was quite correct, that 
it was a pity the day was so misty. I found myself, before I was 
aware, entrapped into a theological controversy with two grave 
gentlemen outside the coach — another fog, which did not subside 
much before we reached Carrickfergus. The road from the Ulster 
capital to that little town seemed meanwhile to be extremely lively : 
cars and omnibuses passed thickly peopled. For some miles along 
the road is a string of handsome country-houses, belonging to the 
rich citizens of the town ; and we passed by neat-looking churches 
and chapels, factories and rows of cottages clustered round them, 
like villages of old at the foot of feudal castles. Furthermore it was 
hard to see, for the mist which lay on the water had enveloped the 
mountains too, and we only had a glimpse or two of smiling comfort- 
able fields and gardens. 

Carrickfergus rejoices in a real romantic-looking castle, jutting 
bravely into the sea, and famous as a background for a picture. It 
is of use for little else now,, luckily ; nor has it been put to any real 
warlike purposes since the day when honest Thurot stormed, took, 
and evacuated it. Let any romancer who is in want of a hero peruse 
the second volume, or it may be the third, of the " Annual Register," 
where the adventures of that gallant fellow are related. He was a 
gentleman, a genius, and, to crown all, a smuggler. He lived for 
some time in Ireland, and in England, in disguise; he had love- 
passages and romantic adventures ; he landed a body of his country- 
men on these shores, and died in the third volume, after a battle 
gallantly fought on both sides, but in which victory rested with the 



294 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

British arms. What can a novelist want more? William III. also 
landed here ; and as for the rest, " M'Skimin, the accurate and 
laborious historian of the town, informs us that the founding of the 
castle is lost in the depths of antiquity." It is pleasant to give a 
little historic glance at a place as one passes through. The above 
facts may be relied on as coming from Messrs. Curry's excellent new 
Guide-book ; with the exception of the history of Mons. Thurot, 
which is " private information," drawn years ago from the scarce 
work previously mentioned. By the way, another excellent com- 
panion to the traveller in Ireland is the collection of the " Irish 
Penny Magazine," which may be purchased for a guinea, and con- 
tains a mass of information regarding the customs and places of the 
country. Willis's work is amusing, as everything is, written by that 
lively author, and the engravings accompanying it as unfaithful as 
any ever made. 

Meanwhile, asking pardon for this double digression, which has 
been made while the guard-coachman is delivering his mail-bags — 
while the landlady stands looking on in the sun, her hands folded a 
little below the waist — while a company of tall burly troops from the 
castle has passed by, " surrounded " by a very mean, mealy-faced, 
uneasy-looking little subaltern — while the poor epileptic idiot of the 
town, wallowing and grinning in the road, and snorting out supplica- 
tions for a halfpenny, has tottered away in possession of the coin : — 
meanwhile, fresh horses are brought out, and the small boy who acts 
behind the coach makes an unequal and disagreeable tootooing on a 
horn kept to warn sleepy carmen and celebrate triumphal entries 
into and exits from cities. As the mist clears up, the country shows 
round about wild but friendly : at one place we passed a village 
where a crowd of well-dressed people were collected at an auction of 
farm-furniture, and many more figures might be seen coming over the 
fields and issuing from the mist. The owner of the carts and machines 
is going to emigrate to America. Presently we come to the demesne 
of Red Hall, " through which is a pretty drive of upwards of a mile 
in length : it contains a rocky glen, the bed of a mountain stream — 
which is perfectly dry, except in winter — and the woods about it are 
picturesque, and it is occasionally the resort of summer-parties of 
pleasure." Nothing can be more just than the first part of the 
description, and there is very little doubt that the latter paragraph is 
equally faithful ; — with which we come to Larne, a " most thriving 



COACH-BOX SKETCHES. 



295 



town," the same authority says, but a most dirty and narrow-streeted 
and ill-built one. Some of the houses reminded one of the south, 
as thus : — 




A benevolent fellow-passenger said that the window was " a con- 
vanience." And here, after a drive of nineteen miles upon a comfort- 
able coach, we were transferred with the mail-bags to a comfortable 
car that makes the journey to Ballycastle. There is no harm in 
saying that there was a very pretty smiling buxom young lass for a 
travelling companion ; and somehow, to a lonely person, the land- 
scape always looks prettier in such society. The "Antrim coast- 
road," which we now, after a few miles, begin to follow, besides 
being one of the most noble and gallant works of art that is to be 
seen in any country, is likewise a route highly picturesque and 
romantic ; the sea spreading wide before the spectator's eyes upon 
one side of the route, the tall cliffs of limestone rising abruptly above 
him on the other. There are in the map of Curry's Guide-book 
points indicating castles and abbey ruins in the vicinity of Glenarm ; 
and the little place looked so comfortable, as we abruptly came 
upon it, round a rock, that I was glad to have an excuse for staying, 
and felt an extreme curiosity with regard to the abbey and the 
castle. 

The abbey only exists in the unromantic shape of a wall ; the 
castle, however, far from being a ruin, is an antique in the most 
complete order — an old castle repaired so as to look like new, and 
increased by modern wings, towers, gables, and terraces, so extremely 
old that the whole forms a grand and imposing-looking baronial 
edifice, towering above the little town which it seems to protect, and 
with which it is connected by a bridge and a severe-looking armed 
tower and gate. In the town is a town-house, with a campanile in 
the Italian taste, and a school or chapel opposite in the early" 



296 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

English ; so tha the inhabitants can enjoy a considerable architec- 
tural variety. A grave-looking church, with a beautiful steeple, 
stands amid some trees hard by a second handsome bridge and the 
little quay ; and here, too, was perched a poor little wandering 
theatre (gallery id., pit 2d.), and proposing that night to play "Bom- 
bastes Furioso, and the Comic Bally of Glenarm in an Uproar." I 
heard the thumping of the drum in the evening; but, as at Round- 
wood, nobody patronized the poor players. At nine o'clock there was 
not a single taper lighted under their awning, and my heart (perhaps 
it is too susceptible) bled for Fusbos. 

The severe gate of the castle was opened by a kind, good-natured 
old porteress, instead of a rough gallowglass with a battle-axe and 
yellow shirt (more fitting guardian of so stern a postern), and the old 
dame insisted upon my making an application to see the grounds of 
the castle, which request was very kindly granted, and afforded a 
delightful half-hour's walk. The grounds are beautiful, and excel- 
lently kept; the trees in their autumn livery of red, yellow, and 
brown, except some stout ones that keep to their green summer 
clothes, and the laurels and their like, who wear pretty much the 
same dress all the year round. The birds were singing with the 
most astonishing vehemence in the dark glistening shrubberies ; but 
the only sound in the walks was that of the rakes pulling together 
the falling leaves. There was of these walks one especially, flanked 
towards the river by a turreted wall covered with ivy, and having on 
the one side a row of lime-trees that had turned quite yellow, while 
opposite them was a green slope, and a quaint terrace-stair, and a 
long range of fantastic gables, towers, and chimneys ; — there was, I 
say, one of these walks which Mr. Cattermole would hit off with a 
few strokes of his gallant pencil, and which I could fancy to be 
frequented by some of those long-trained, tender, gentle-looking 
young beauties whom Mr. Stone loves to design. Here they come, 
talking of love in a tone that is between a sigh and a whisper, and 
gliding in rustling shot silks over the fallen leaves. 

There seemed to be a good deal of stir in the little port, where, 
says the Guide-book, a couple of hundred vessels take in cargoes 
annually of the produce of the district. Stone and lime are the chief 
articles exported, of which the cliffs for miles give an unfailing supply; 
and, as one travels the mountains at night, the kilns may be seen 
lighted up in the lonely places, and flaring red in the darkness. 



ANTRIM COAST-ROAD. 297 

If the road from Lame to Glenarm is beautiful, the coast route 
from the latter place to Cushendall is still more so ; and, except 
peerless Westport, I have seen nothing in Ireland so picturesque as 
this noble line of coast scenery. The new road, luckily, is not yet 
completed, and the lover of natural beauties had better hasten to the 
spot in time, ere, by flattening and improving the road, and leading 
it along the sea-shore, half the magnificent prospects are shut out, 
now visible from along the mountainous old road ; which, according 
to the good old fashion, gallantly takes all the hills in its course, 
disdaining to turn them. At three miles' distance, near the village of 
Cairlough, Glenarm looks more beautiful than when you are close 
upon it ; and, as the car travels on to the stupendous Garron Head, 
the traveller, looking back, has a view of the whole line of coast 
southward as far as Isle Magee, with its bays and white villages, and 
tall precipitous cliffs, green, white, and gray. Eyes left, you may look 
with wonder at the mountains rising above, or presently at the pretty 
park and grounds of Drumnasole. Here, near the woods of Nappan, 
which are dressed in ten thousand colours — ash-leaves turned yellow, 
nut-trees red, birch-leaves brown, lime-leaves speckled over with black 
spots (marks of a disease which they will never get over) — stands a 
school-house that looks like a French chateau, having probably been 
a villa in former days, and discharges as we pass a cluster of fair- 
haired children, that begin running madly down the hill, their fair 
hair streaming behind them. Down the hill goes the car, madly too, 
and you wonder and bless your stars that the horse does not fall, or 
crush the children that are running before, or you that are sitting 
behind. Every now and then, at a trip of the horse, a disguised 
lady's-maid, with a canary-bird in her lap and a vast anxiety about 
her best bonnet in the band-box, begins to scream : at which the car- 
boy grins, and rattles down the hill only the quicker. The road, which 
almost always skirts the hill-side, has been torn sheer through the 
rock here and there : an immense work of levelling, shovelling, 
picking, blasting, filling, is going on along the whole line. As I was 
looking up a vast cliff, decorated with patches of green here and 
there at its summit, and at its base, where the sea had beaten until 
now, with long, thin, waving grass, that I told a grocer, my neighbour, 
was like mermaid's hair (though he did not in the least coincide in 
the simile) — as I was looking up the hill, admiring two goats that 
were browsing on a little patch of green, and two sheep perched yet 



298 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

higher (I had never seen such agility in mutton) — as, I say once 
more, I was looking at these phenomena, the grocer nudges me and 
says, " Look on to this side — that's Scotland yon.''' If ever this book 
reaches a second edition, a sonnet shall be inserted in this place, 
describing the author's feelings on his first view of Scotland. 
Meanwhile, the Scotch mountains remain undisturbed, looking blue 
and solemn, far away in the placid sea. 

Rounding Garron Head, we come upon the inlet which is called 
Red Bay, the shores and sides of which are of red clay, that has taken 
the place of limestone, and towards which, between two noble ranges 
of mountains, stretches a long green plain, forming, together with the 
hills that protect it and the sea that washes it, one of the most 
beautiful landscapes of this most beautiful country. A fair writer, 
whom the Guide-book quotes-, breaks out into strains of admira- 
tion in speaking of this district ; calls it " Switzerland in miniature," 
celebrates its mountains of Glenariff and Lurgethan, and lauds, in 
terms of equal admiration, the rivers, waterfalls, and other natural 
beauties that lie within the glen. 

The writer's enthusiasm regarding this tract of country is quite 
warranted, nor can any praise in admiration of it be too high ; but 
alas ! in calling a place " Switzerland in miniature," do we describe 
it ? In joining together cataracts, valleys, rushing streams, and blue 
mountains, with all the emphasis and picturesqueness of which type 
is capable, we cannot get near to a copy of Nature's sublime 
countenance ; and the writer can't hope to describe such grand sights 
so as to make them visible to the fireside reader, but can only, to the 
best of his taste and experience, warn the future traveller where he 
may look out for objects to admire. I think this sentiment has been 
repeated a score of times in this journal ; but it comes upon one at 
every new display of beauty and magnificence, such as here the 
Almighty in his bounty has set before us ; and every such scene 
seems to warn one, that it is not made to talk about too much, but 
to think of and love, and be grateful for. 

Rounding this beautiful bay and valley, we passed by some caves 
that penetrate deep into the red rock, and are inhabited — one by a 
blacksmith, whose forge was blazing in the dark ; one by cattle ; and 
one by an old woman that has sold whisky here for time out of mind. 
The road then passes under an arch cut in the rock by the same 
spirited individual who has cleared away many of the difficulties in 



CUSHENDALL. 299 

the route to Glenarm, and beside a conical hill, where for some time 
previous have been visible the ruins of the " ancient ould castle " of 
Red Bay. At a distance, it looks very grand upon its height ; but 
on coming close it has dwindled down to a mere wall, and not a high 
one. Hence quickly we reached Cushendall, where the grocer's 
family are on the look-out for him : the driver begins to blow his 
little bugle, and the disguised lady's-maid begins to smooth her bonnet 
and hair. 

At this place a good dinner of fresh whiting, broiled bacon, and 
small beer was served up to me for the sum of eightpence, while the 
lady's-maid in question took her tea. " This town is full of Papists," 
said her ladyship, with an extremely genteel air ; and, either in con- 
sequence of this, or because she ate up one of the fish, which she had 
clearly no right to, a disagreement arose between us, and we did not 
exchange another word for the rest of the journey. The road led us 
for fourteen miles by wild mountains, and across a fine aqueduct to 
Ballycastle ; but it was dark as we left Cushendall, and it was difficult 
to see more in the gray evening but that the country was savage and 
lonely, except where the kilns were lighted up here and there in the 
hills, and a shining river might be seen winding in the dark ravines. 
Not far from Ballycastle lies a little old ruin, called the Abbey of 
Bonamargy : by it the Margy river runs into the sea, upon which you 
come suddenly ; and on the shore are some tall buildings and factories, 
that looked as well in the moonlight as if they had not been in ruins : 
and hence a fine avenue of limes leads to Ballycastle. They must 
have been planted at the time recorded in the Guide-book, when a 
mine was discovered near the town, and the works and warehouses 
on the quay erected. At present, the place has little trade, and half- 
a-dozen carts with apples, potatoes, dried fish, and turf, seem to 
contain the commerce of the market. 

The picturesque sort of vehicle designed on the next page is said 
to be going much out of fashion in the country, the solid wheels giving 
place to those common to the rest of Europe. A fine and edifying 
conversation took place between the designer and the owner of the 
vehicle. " Stand still for a minute, you and the car, and I will give 
you twopence ! " " What do you want to do with it ? " says the 
latter. " To draw it." " To draw it ! " says he, with a wild look of 
surprise. " And is it you'll draw it ? " "I mean I want to take a 
picture of it : you know what a picture is ! " " No, I don't." 



300 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

" Here's one," says I, showing him a book. " Oh, faith, sir," says the 
carman, drawing back rather alarmed, " I'm no scholar ! " And he 
concluded by saying, "Will you buy the turf, or will you not?" By 
which straightforward question he showed himself to be a real 
practical man of sense ; and, as he got an unsatisfactory reply to 
this query, he forthwith gave a lash to his pony and declined to 




wait a minute longer. As for the twopence, he certainly accepted 
that handsome sum, and put it into his pocket, but with an air of 
extreme wonder at the transaction, and of contempt for the giver ; 
which very likely was perfectly justifiable. I have seen men despised 
in genteel companies with not half so good a cause. 

In respect to the fine arts, I am bound to say that the people in 
the South and West showed much more curiosity and interest with 
regard to a sketch and its progress than has been shown by the 
badauds of the North ; the former looking on by dozens and exclaim- 
ing, " That's Frank Mahony's house ! " or " Look at Biddy Mullins 
and the child ! " or " He's taking off the chimney now ! " as 
the case may be ; whereas, sketching in the North, I have collected 
no such spectators, the people not taking the slightest notice of 
the transaction. 

The little town of Ballycastle does not contain much to occupy 
the traveller : behind the church stands a ruined old mansion with 
round turrets, that must have been a stately tower in former days. 
The town is more modern, but almost as dismal as the tower. A 
little street behind it slides off into a potato-field — the peaceful 
barrier of the place; and hence I could see the tall rock of 



BALLYCASTLE. 301 

Bengore, with the sea beyond it, and a pleasing landscape stretching 
towards it. 

Dr. Hamilton's elegant and learned book has an awful picture of 
yonder head of Bengore ; and hard by it the Guide-book says is a 
coal-mine, where Mr. Barrow found a globular stone hammer, which ; 
he infers, was used in the coal-mine before weapons of iron were 
invented. The former writer insinuates that the mine must have 
been worked more than a thousand years ago, " before the turbulent 
chaos of events that succeeded the eighth century." Shall I go and 
see a coal-mine that may have been worked a thousand years since ? 
Why go see it ? says idleness. To be able to say that I have seen it. 
Sheridan's advice to his son here came into my mind ; * and I shall 
reserve a description of the mine, and an antiquarian dissertation 
regarding it, for publication elsewhere. 

Ballycastle must not be left without recording the fact that one 
of the snuggest inns in the country is kept by the postmaster there ; 
who has also a stable full of good horses for travellers who take his 
little inn on the way to the Giant's Causeway. 

The road to the Causeway is bleak, wild, and hilly. The cabins 
along the road are scarcely better than those of Kerry, the inmates 
as ragged, and more fierce and dark-looking. I never was so pestered 
by juvenile beggars as in the dismal village of Ballintoy. A crowd 
of them rushed after the car, calling for money in a fierce manner, as 
if it was their right : dogs as fierce as the children came yelling after 
the vehicle; and the faces which scowled out of the black cabins 
were not a whit more good-humoured. We passed by one or two 
more clumps of cabins, with their turf and corn-stacks lying together 
at the foot of the hills ; placed there for the convenience of the 
children, doubtless, who can thus accompany the car either way, and 
shriek out their " Bonny gantleman, gi'e us a ha'p'ny." A couple of 
churches, one with a pair of its pinnacles blown off, stood in the 
dismal open country, and a gentleman's house here and there : 
there were no trees about them, but a brown grass round about — hills 
rising and falling in front, and the sea beyond. The occasional view 
of the coast was noble ; wild Bengore towering eastwards as we went 
along ; Raghery Island before us, in the steep rocks and caves of 

* "I want to go into a coal-mine," says Tom Sheridan, " in order to say I 
have been there." "Well, then, say so," replied the admirable father. 



302 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

which Bruce took shelter when driven from yonder Scottish coast, 
that one sees stretching blue in the north-east 

I think this wild .gloomy tract through which one passes is a 
good prelude for what is to be the great sight of the day, and got 
my mind to a proper state of awe by the time we were near the 
journey's end. Turning away shorewards by the fine house of 
Sir Francis Macnaghten, I went towards a lone handsome inn, that 
stands close to the Causeway. The landlord at Ballycastle had lent 
me Hamilton's book to read on the road ; but I had not time then 
to read more than half a dozen pages of it. They described how the 
author, a clergyman distinguished as a man of science, had been 
thrust out of a friend's house by the frightened servants one wild 
night, and butchered by some Whiteboys who were waiting outside 
and called for his blood. I had been told at Belfast that there was 
a corpse in the inn : was it there now ? It had driven off, the car- 
boy said, " in a handsome hearse and four to Dublin the whole way." 
It was gone, but I thought the house looked as if the ghost was 
there. See, yonder are the black rocks stretching to Portrush : how 
leaden and gray the sea looks ! how gray and leaden the sky ! You 
hear the waters roaring evermore, as they have done since the 
beginning of the world. The car drives up with a dismal grinding 
noise of the wheels to the big lone house : there's no smoke in the 
chimneys ; the doors are locked. Three savage-looking men rush 
after the car : are they the men who took out Mr. Hamilton — took 
him out and butchered him in the moonlight? Is everybody, I 
wonder, dead in that big house ? Will they let us in before those 
men are up ? Out comes a pretty smiling girl, with a curtsey, just as 
the savages are at the car, and you are ushered into a very com- 
fortable room ; and the men turn out to be guides. Well, thank 
heaven it's no worse ! I had fifteen pounds still left ; and, when 
desperate, have no doubt should fight like a lion. 



( 3°3 ) 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY — COLERAINE — PORTRUSH. 

The traveller no sooner issues from the inn by a back door, which 
he is informed will lead him straight to the Causeway, than the guides 
pounce upon him, with a dozen rough boatmen who are likewise 
lying in wait ; and a crew of shrill beggar-boys, with boxes of spars, 
ready to tear him and each other to pieces seemingly, yell and bawl 
incessantly round him. " I'm the guide Miss Henry recommends," 
shouts one. " I'm Mr. Macdonald's guide," pushes in another. 
" This way," roars a third, and drags his prey down a precipice ; the 
rest of them clambering and quarrelling after. I had no friends : I 
was perfectly helpless. I wanted to walk down to the shore by myself, 
but they would not let me, and I had nothing for it but to yield 
myself into the hands of the guide who had seized me, who hurried 
me down the steep to a little wild bay, flanked on each side by 
rugged cliffs and rocks, against which the waters came tumbling, 
frothing, and roaring furiously. Upon some of these black rocks 
two or three boats were lying : four men seized a boat, pushed it 
shouting into the water, and ravished me into it. We had slid 
between two rocks, where the channel came gurgling in : we were 
up one swelling wave that came in a huge advancing body ten feet 
above us, and were plunging madly down another, (the descent 
causes a sensation in the lower regions of the stomach which it is 
not at all necessary here to describe,) before I had leisure to ask 
myself why the deuce I was in that boat, with four rowers hurrooing 
and bounding madly from one huge liquid mountain to another — 
four rowers whom I was bound to pay. I say, the query came 
qualmishly across me why the devil I was there, and why not walking 
calmly on the shore. 

The guide began pouring his professional jargon into my ears. 
" Every one of them bays," says he, " has a name (take my place,, 
and the spray won't come over you) : that is Port Noffer, and the 
next, Port na Gange ; them rocks is the Stookawns (for every rock 



3°4 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



has its name as well as every bay) ; and yonder — give way, my boys, 
— hurray, we're over it now : has it wet you much, sir ? — that's the 
little cave: it goes five hundred feet under ground, and the boats 
goes into it easy of a calm day." 

" Is it a fine day or a rough one now ? " said I ; the internal dis- 
turbance going on with more severity than ever. 




" It's betwixt and between ; or, I may say, neither one nor the 
other. Sit up, sir. Look at the entrance of the cave. Don't be 
afraid, sir : never has an accident happened in any one of these boats, 
and the most delicate ladies has rode in them on rougher days 
than this. Now, boys, pull to the big cave. That, sir, is six hundred 
and sixty yards in length, though some say it goes for miles inland, 



SEEING THE CAUSEWAY. 305 

where the people sleeping in their houses hear the waters roaring 
under them." 

The water was tossing and tumbling into the mouth of the little 
cave. I looked, — for the guide would not let me alone till I did, — 
and saw what might be expected : a black hole of some forty feet 
high, into which it was no more possible to see than into a mill- 
stone. " For heaven's sake, sir," says I, " if you've no particular 
wish to see the mouth of the big cave, put about and let us see the 
Causeway and get ashore." This was done, the guide meanwhile 
telling some story of a ship of the Spanish Armada having fired her 
guns at two peaks of rock, then visible, which the crew mistook for 
chimney-pots — what benighted fools these Spanish Armadilloes must 
have been : it is easier to see a rock than a chimney-pot ; it is easy 
to know that chimney-pots do not grow on rocks. — " But where, if you 
please, is the Causeway ? " 

" That's the Causeway before you," says the guide. 

"Which?" 

"That pier which you see jutting out into the bay, right a-head." 

" Mon Dieu ! and have I travelled a hundred and fifty miles to 
see that ? " 

I declare, upon my conscience, the barge moored at Hungerford 
market is a more majestic object, and seems to occupy as much 
space. As for telling a man that the Causeway is merely a part of 
the sight ; that he is there for the purpose of examining the sur- 
rounding scenery ; that if he looks to the westward he will see 
Portrush and Donegal Head before him ; that the cliffs immediately 
in his front are green in some places, black in others, interspersed 
with blotches of brown and streaks of verdure ; — what is all this to a 
lonely individual lying sick in a boat, between two immense waves 
that only give him momentary glimpses of the land in question, to 
show that it is frightfully near, and yet you are an hour from it i They 
won't let you go away — that cursed guide will tell out his stock of 
legends and stories. The boatmen insist upon your looking at boxes 
of " specimens," which you must buy of them ; they laugh as you 
grow paler and paler ; they offer you more and more " specimens ; " 
even the dirty lad who pulls number three, and is not allowed by 
his comrades to speak, puts in his oar, and hands you over a 
piece of Irish diamond (it- looks like half-sucked alicompayne), 
and scorns you. " Hurray, lads, now for it, give way ! " how 

20 



3o6 ' THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK 

the oars do hurtle in the rowlocks, as the boat goes up an aqueous 
mountain, and then down into one of those cursed maritime valleys 
where there is no rest as on shore ! 

At last, after they had pulled me enough about, and sold me all 
the boxes of specimens, I was pennitted to land at the spot whence 
we set out, and whence, though we had been rowing for an hour, 
we had never been above five hundred yards distant. Let all 
Cockneys take warning from this ; let the solitary one caught issuing 
from the back door of the hotel, shout at once to the boatmen to be 
gone — that he will have none of them. Let him, at any rate, go 
first down to the water to determine whether it be smooth enough 
to allow him to take any decent pleasure by riding on its surface. 
For after all, it must be remembered that it is pleasure we come for 
— that we are not obliged to take those boats. — Well, well ! I paid 
ten shillings for mine, and ten minutes before would cheerfully have 
paid five pounds to be allowed to quit it : it was no hard bargain after 
all. As for the boxes of spar and specimens, I at once, being on terra 

firma, broke my promise, and said I would see them all first. 

It is wrong to swear, I know ; but sometimes it relieves one so much ! 

The first act on shore was to make a sacrifice to Sanctissima 
Tellus ; offering up to her a neat and becoming Taglioni coat, bought 
for a guinea in Covent Garden only three months back. I sprawled 
on my back on the smoothest of rocks that is, and tore the elbows to 
pieces : the guide picked me up ; the boatmen did not stir, for they 
had had their will of me ; the guide alone picked me up, I say, and 
bade me follow him. We went across a boggy ground in one of the 
little bays, round which rise the green walls of the cliff, terminated 
on either side by a black crag, and the line of the shore washed by 
the poluphloisboiotic, nay, the poluphloisboiotatotic sea. Two beggars 
stepped over the bog after us howling for money, and each holding 
up a cursed box of specimens. No oaths, threats, entreaties, would 
drive these vermin away ; for some time the whole scene had been 
spoilt by the incessant and abominable jargon of them, the boatmen, 
and the guides. I was obliged to give them money to be left in 
quiet, and if, as no doubt will be the case, the Giant's Causeway shall 
be a still greater resort of travellers than ever, the county must put 
policemen on the rocks to keep the beggars away, or fling them in 
the water when they appear. 

And now, by force of money, having got rid of the sea and land 



THE GIANT'S CAUSEWAY. 307 

beggars, you are at liberty to examine at your leisure the wonders of the 
place. There is not the least need for a guide to attend the stranger, 
unless the latter have a mind to listen to a parcel of legends, which 
may be well from the mouth of a wild simple peasant who believes in 
his tales, but are odious from a dullard who narrates them at the 
rate of sixpence a lie. Fee him and the other beggars, and at last 
you are left tranquil to look at the strange scene with your own eyes 
and enjoy your own thoughts at leisure. 

That is, if the thoughts awakened by such a scene may be called 
enjoyment ; but for me, I confess, they are too near akin to fear to 
be pleasant ; and I don't know that I would desire to change that 
sensation of awe and terror which the hour's walk occasioned, for a 
greater familiarity with this wild, sad, lonely place. The solitude is 
awful. I can't understand how those chattering guides dare to lift up 
their voices here, and cry for money. 

It looks like the beginning of the world, somehow : the sea looks 
older than in other places, the hills and rocks strange, and formed 
differently from other rocks and hills — as those vast dubious monsters 
were formed who possessed the earth before man. The hill-tops are 
shattered into a thousand cragged fantastical shapes ; the water comes 
swelling into scores of little strange creeks, or goes off with a leap, 
roaring into those mysterious caves yonder, which penetrate who 
knows how far into our common world? The savage rock-sides are 
painted of a hundred colours. Does the sun ever shine here ? When 
the world was moulded and fashioned out of formless chaos, this 
must have been the bit over — a remnant of chaos ! Think of that ! 
— it is a tailor's simile. Well, I am a Cockney : I wish I were in 
Pall Mall ! Yonder is a kelp-burner : a lurid smoke from his burning 
kelp rises up to the leaden sky, and he looks as naked and fierce as 
Cain. Bubbling up out of the rocks at the very brim of the sea rises 
a little crystal spring : how comes it there ? and there is an old gray 
hag beside, who has been there for hundreds and hundreds of years, 
and there sits and sells whisky at the extremity of creation ! How 
do you dare to sell whisky there, old woman ? Did you serve old 
Saturn with a glass when he lay along the Causeway here ? In reply, 
she says, she has no change for a shilling : she never has : but her 
whisky is good. 

This is not a description of the Giant's Causeway (as some clever 
critic will remark), but of a Londoner there, who is by no means so 



308 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

interesting an object as the natural curiosity in question. That single 
hint is sufficient ; I have not a word more to say. " If," says he, 
"you cannot describe the scene lying before us — if you cannot state 
from your personal observation that the number of basaltic pillars 
composing the Causeway has been computed at about forty thousand, 
which vary in diameter, their surface presenting the appearance of a 
tesselated pavement of polygonal stones — that each pillar is formed 
of several distinct joints, the convex end of the one being accurately 
fitted in the concave of the next, and the length of the joints vary- 
ing from five feet to four inches — that although the pillars are poly- 
gonal, there is but one of three sides in the whole forty thousand 
(think of that !), but three of nine sides, and that it may be safely 
computed that ninety-nine out of one hundred pillars have either five, 
six, or seven sides ; — if you cannot state something useful, you had 
much better, sir, retire and get your dinner." 

Never was summons more gladly obeyed. The dinner must be 
ready by this time ; so, remain you, and look on at the awful scene, 
and copy it down in words if you can. If at the end of the trial you 
are dissatisfied with your skill as a painter, and find that the biggest 
of your words cannot render the hues and vastness of that tremen- 
dous swelling sea — of those lean solitary crags standing rigid along the 
shore, where they have been watching the ocean ever since it was 
made — of those gray towers of Dunluce standing upon a leaden rock, 
and looking as if some old, old princess, of old, old fairy times, were 
dragon-guarded within— of yon flat stretches of sand where the 
Scotch and Irish mermaids hold conference— come away too, and 
prate no more about the scene ! There is that in nature, dear 
Jenkins, which passes even our powers. We can feel the beauty of 
a magnificent landscape, perhaps : but we can describe a leg of 
mutton and turnips better. Come, then, this scene is for our betters 
to depict. If Mr. Tennyson were to come hither for a month, and 
brood over the place, he might, in some of those lofty heroic lines 
which the author of the " Morte d' Arthur " knows how to pile up, 
convey to the reader a sense of this gigantic desolate scene. What ! 
you, too, are a poet ? Well, then, Jenkins, stay ! but believe me, you 
had best take my advice, and come off. 

The worthy landlady made her appearance with the politest of 
bows and an apology, — for what does the reader think a lady should, 



THE CAUSEWAY HOTEL. 309 

apologize in the most lonely rude spot in the world ? — because a plain 
servant-woman was about to bring in the dinner, the waiter being 
absent on leave at Coleraine ! O heaven and earth ! where will the 
genteel end? I replied philosophically that I did not care twopence 
for the plainness or beauty of the waiter, but that it was the dinner I 
looked to, the frying whereof made a great noise in the huge lonely 
house ; and it must be said, that though the lady was plain, the 
repast was exceedingly good. " I have expended my little all," says 
the landlady, stepping in with a speech after dinner, " in the building 
of this establishment ; and though to a man its profits may appear 
small, to such a being as I am it will bring, I trust, a sufficient return ;" 
and on my asking her why she took the place, she replied that she 
had always, from her earliest youth, a fancy to dwell in that spot, and 
had accordingly realized her wish by building this hotel — this mauso- 
leum. In spite of the bright fire, and the good dinner, and the good 
wine, it was impossible to feel comfortable in the place ; and when 
the car wheels were heard, I jumped up with joy to take my departure 
and forget the awful lonely shore, and that wild, dismal, genteel inn. 
A ride over a wide gusty country, in a gray, misty, half-moonlight, 
the loss of a wheel at Bushmills, and the escape from a tumble, were 
the delightful varieties after the late awful occurrences. "Such a 
being " as I am, would die of loneliness in that hotel ; and so let all 
brother Cockneys be warned. 

Some time before we came to it, we saw the long line of mist that 
lay above the Bann, and coming through a dirty suburb of low cottages, 
passed down a broad street with gas and lamps in it (thank heaven, 
there are people once more !), and at length drove up in state, across 
a gas-pipe, in a market-place, before an hotel in the town of Cole- 
raine, famous for linen and for Beautiful Kitty, who must be old and 
ugly now, for it's a good five-and-thirty years since she broke her 
pitcher, according to Mr. Moore's account of her. The scene as we 
entered the Diamond was rather a lively one — a score of little stalls 
were brilliant with lights ; the people were thronging in the place 
making their Saturday bargains ; the town clock began to toll nine ; 
and hark ! faithful to a minute, the horn of the Derry mail was heard 
tootooing, and four commercial gentlemen, with Scotch accents, rushed 
into the hotel at the same time with myself. 

Among the beauties of Coleraine may be mentioned the price 
of beef, which a gentleman told me may be had for fourpence a 



3io THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

pound ; and I saw him purchase an excellent codfish for a shilling. 
I am bound, too, to state for the benefit of aspiring Radicals, what 
two Conservative citizens of the place stated to me, viz. ; — that 
though there were two Conservative candidates then canvassing the 
town, on account of a vacancy in the representation, the voters were 
so truly liberal that they would elect any person of any other political 
creed, who would simply bring money enough to purchase their 
votes. There are 220 voters, it appears ; of whom it is not, however, 
necessary to " argue " with more than fifty, who alone are open to 
conviction ; but as parties are pretty equally balanced, the votes of 
the quinquagint, of course, carry an immense weight with them. 
Well, this is all discussed calmly standing on an inn-steps, with a 
jolly landlord and a professional man of the town to give the 
information. ( So, heaven bless us, the ways of London are beginning 
to be known even here. Gentility has already taken up her seat in 
the Giant's Causeway, where she apologizes for the plainness of her 
look : and, lo ! here is bribery, as bold as in the most civilized 
places — hundreds and hundreds of miles away from St. Stephen's 
and Pall Mall. I wonder, in that little island of Raghery, so wild 
and lonely, whether civilization is beginning to dawn upon them ? 
— whether they bribe and are genteel? But for the rough sea of 
yesterday, I think I would have fled thither to make the trial. 

The town of Coleraine, with a number of cabin suburbs belonging 
to it, lies picturesquely grouped on the Bann river : and the whole 
of the little city was echoing with psalms as I walked through it on 
the Sunday morning. The piety of the people seems remarkable ; 
some of the inns even will not receive travellers on Sunday; and 
this is written in an hotel, of which every room is provided with a 
Testament, containing an injunction on the part of the landlord to 
consider this world itself as only a passing abode. Is it well that Boni- 
face should furnish his guest with Bibles as well as bills, and sometimes 
shut his door on a traveller, who has no other choice but to read 
it on a Sunday ? I heard of a gentleman arriving from ship-board 
at Kilrush on a Sunday, when the pious hotel-keeper refused him 
admittance ; and some more tales, which to go into would require 
the introduction of private names and circumstances, but would tend 
to show that the Protestant of the North is as much priest-ridden as 
the Catholic of the South : — priest and old woman-ridden, for there 
are certain expounders of doctrine in our church, who are not, I 



PURITANISM. 31 r 

believe, to be found in the church of Rome j and woe betide the 
stranger who comes to settle in these parts, if his " seriousness " be 
not satisfactory to the heads (with false fronts to most of them) of 
the congregations. 

Look at that little snug harbour of Portrush ! a hideous new 
castle standing on a rock protects it on one side, a snug row of 
gentlemen's cottages curves round the shore facing northward, a 
bath-house, an hotel, more smart houses, face the beach westward, 
defended by another mound of rocks. In the centre of the little 
town stands a new-built church ; and the whole place has an air of 
comfort and neatness which is seldom seen in Ireland. One would 
fancy that all the tenants of these pretty snug habitations, sheltered 
in this nook far away from the world, have nothing to do but to 
be happy, and spend their little comfortable means in snug little 
hospitalities among one another, and kind little charities among the 
poor. What does a man in active life ask for more than to retire 
to such a competence, to such a snug nook of the world ; and 
there repose with a stock of healthy children round the fireside, a 
friend within call, and the means of decent hospitality wherewith to 
treat him ? 

Let any one meditating this pleasant sort of retreat, and charmed 
with the look of this or that place as peculiarly suited to his purpose, 
take a special care to understand his neighbourhood first, before he 
commit himself, by lease-signing or house-buying, It is not sufficient 
that you should be honest, kind-hearted, hospitable, of good family 
— what are your opinions upon religious subjects? Are they such 
as agree with the notions of old Lady This, or Mrs. That, who are 
the patronesses of the village ? If not, woe betide you ! you will 
be shunned by the rest of the society, thwarted in your attempts to 
do good, whispered against over evangelical bohea and serious 
muffins. Lady This will inform every new arrival that you are a 
reprobate, and lost, and Mrs. That will consign you and your 
daughters, and your wife (a worthy woman, but, alas ! united to that 
sad worldly man !) to damnation. The clergyman who partakes of 
the muffins and bohea before mentioned, will very possibly preach 
sermons against you from the pulpit : this was not done at Port- 
stewart to my knowledge, but I have had the pleasure of sitting 
under a minister in Ireland- who insulted the very patron who gave 
him his living, discoursing upon the sinfulness of partridge-shooting, 



3 i2 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

and threatening hell-fire as the last " meet" for fox-hunters ; until 
the squire, one of the best and most charitable resident landlords in 
Ireland, was absolutely driven out of the church where his fathers 
had worshipped for hundreds of years, by the insults of this howling 
evangelical inquisitor. 

So much as this I did not hear at Portstewart ; but I was told 
that at yonder neat-looking bath-house a dying woman was denied a 
bath on a Sunday. By a clause of the lease by which the bath-owner 
rents his establishment, he is forbidden to give baths to any one on 
the Sunday. The landlord of the inn, forsooth, shuts his gates on 
the same day, and his conscience on week days will not allow him 
to supply his guests with whisky or ardent spirits. I was told by my 
friend, that because he refused to subscribe for some fancy charity, 
he received a letter to state that " he spent more in one dinner than 
in charity in the course of the year." My worthy friend did not care 
to contradict the statement, as why should a man deign to meddle 
with such a lie ? But think how all the fishes, and all the pieces of 
meat, and all the people who went in and out of his snug cottage by 
the sea-side must have been watched by the serious round about ! 
The sea is not more constant roaring there, than scandal is whis- 
pering. How happy I felt, while hearing these histories (demure 
heads in crimped caps peeping over the blinds at us as we walked 
on the beach), to think I am a Cockney, and don't know the name 
of the man who lives next door to me ! 

I have heard various stories, of course from persons of various 
ways of thinking, charging their opponents with hypocrisy, and 
proving the charge by statements clearly showing that the priests, 
the preachers, or the professing religionists in question, belied their 
professions wofully by their practice. But in matters of religion, 
hypocrisy is so awful a charge to make against a man, that I think it 
is almost unfair to mention even the cases in which it is proven, 
and which, — as, pray God, they are but exceptional, — a person 
should be very careful of mentioning, lest they be considered to 
apply generally, Tartuffe has been always a disgusting play to me 
to see, in spite of its sense and its wit ; and so, instead of printing, 
here or elsewhere, a few stories of the Tartuffe kind which I have 
heard in Ireland, the best way will be to try and forget them. It is 
an awful thing to say of any man walking under God's sun by the 
side of us, " You are a hypocrite, lying as you use the Most Sacred 



PORTRUSH CHURCH. 313 

Name, knowing that you lie while you use it." Let it be the 
privilege of any sect that is so minded, to imagine that there is 
perdition in store for all the rest of God's creatures who do not 
think with them : but the easy countercharge of hypocrisy, which 
the world has been in the habit of making in its turn, is surely just 
as fatal and bigoted an accusation as any that the sects make 
against the world. 

What has this disquisition to do apropos of a walk on the beach 
at Portstewart ? Why, it may be made here as well as in other parts 
of Ireland, or elsewhere as well, perhaps, as here. It is the most 
priest-ridden of countries ; Catholic clergymen lord it over their 
ragged flocks, as Protestant preachers, lay and clerical, over their 
more genteel co-religionists. Bound to inculcate peace and good-will, 
their whole life is one of enmity and distrust. 

Walking away from the little bay and the disquisition which has 
somehow been raging there, we went across some wild dreary high- 
lands to the neighbouring little town of Portrush, where is a neat 
town and houses, and a harbour, and a new church too, so like the 
last-named place that I thought for a moment we had only made a 
round, and were back again at Portstewart. Some gentlemen of the 
place, and my guide, who had a neighbourly liking for it, showed me 
the new church, and seemed to be well pleased with the edifice ; which 
is, indeed, a neat and convenient one, of a rather irregular Gothic. 
The best thing about the church, I think, was the history of it. The 
old church had lain some miles off, in the most inconvenient part of 
the parish, whereupon the clergyman and some of the gentry had 
raised a subscription in order to build the present church. The ex- 
penses had exceeded the estimates, or the subscriptions had fallen short 
of the sums necessary ; and the church, in consequence, was opened 
with a debt on it, which the rector and two more of the gentry had 
taken on their shoulders. The living is a small one, the other two 
gentlemen going bail for the edifice not so rich as to think light of the 
payment of a couple of hundred pounds beyond their previous sub- 
scriptions — the lists are therefore still open ; and the clergyman 
expressed himself perfectly satisfied either that he would be reim- 
bursed one day or other, or that he would be able to make out the 
payment of the money for which he stood engaged. Most cf the 
Roman Catholic churches that I have seen through the country have 
been built in this way, — begun when money enough was levied for 



314 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



constructing the foundation, elevated by degrees as fresh subscriptions 
came in, and finished — by the way, I don't think I have seen one 
finished ; but there is something noble in the spirit (however certain 
economists may cavil at it) that leads people to commence these 
pious undertakings with the firm trust that " Heaven will provide." 

Eastward from Portrush, we came upon a beautiful level sand 
which leads to the White Rocks, a famous place of resort for the fre- 
quenters of the neighbouring watering-places. Here are caves, and 
for a considerable distance a view of the wild and gloomy Antrim coast 
as far as BengQre. Midway, jutting into the sea, (and I was glad it was 
so far off,) was the Causeway; and nearer, the gray towers of Dunluce. 

Looking north, were the blue Scotch hills and the neighbouring 
Raghery Island. Nearer Portrush were two rocky islands, called the 
Skerries, of which a sportsman of our party vaunted the capabilities, 
regretting that my stay was not longer, so that I might land and shot>t 
a few ducks there. This unlucky lateness of the season struck me 
also as a most afflicting circumstance. He said also that fish were 
caught off the island — not fish good to eat, but very strong at pulling, 
eager of biting, and affording a great deal of sport. And so we turned 
our backs once more upon the Giant's Causeway, and the grim coast 



J 



1 




on which it lies ; and as my taste in life leads me to prefer looking at 
the smiling fresh face of a young cheerful beauty, rather than at 
the fierce countenance and high features of a dishevelled Meg 
Merrilies, I must say again that I was glad to turn my back on 
this severe part of the Antrim coast, and my steps towards Derry. 



( 3i5 ) 



CHAPTER XXX. 

PEG OF LIMAVADDY. 

Between Coleraine and Deny there is a daily car (besides one or 
;wo occasional queer-looking coaches), and I had this vehicle, with an 
ntelligent driver, and a horse with a hideous raw on his shoulder, 
entirely to myself for the five-and-twenty miles of our journey. The 
:abins of Coleraine are not parted with in a hurry, and we crossed the 
aridge, and went up and down the hills of one of the suburban streets, 
:he Bann flowing picturesquely to our left; a large Catholic chapel, the 
before-mentioned cabins, and farther on, some neat-looking houses 
md plantations, to our right. Then we began ascending wide lonely 
aills, pools of bog shining here and there amongst them, with birds, 
both black and white, both geese and crows, on the hunt. Some of 
the stubble was already ploughed up, but by the side of most cottages 
yon saw a black potato-field that it was time to dig now, for the 
veather was changing and the winds beginning to roar. Woods, 
whenever we passed them, were flinging round eddies of mustard- 
:oloured leaves ; the white trunks of lime and ash trees beginning to 
ook very bare. 

Then we stopped to give the raw-backed horse water ; then we 
trotted down a hill with a noble bleak prospect of Lough Foyle and 
:he surrounding mountains before us, until we reached the town of 
Newtown Limavaddy, where the raw-backed horse was exchanged 
ibr another not much more agreeable in his appearance, though, like 
bis comrade, not slow on the road. 

Newtown Limavaddy is the third town in the county of London- 
ferry. It comprises three well-built streets, the others are inferior ; 
it is, however, respectably inhabited : all this may be true, as the well- 
informed Guide-book avers, but I am bound to say that I was thinking 
Df something else as we drove through the town, having fallen eternally 
in love during the ten minutes of our stay. 

Yes, Peggy of Limavaddy, if Barrow and Inglis have gone to 
Connemara to fall in love with the Misses Flynn, let us be allowed to 
come to Ulster and offer a tribute of praise at your feet — at your 



3io 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



stockingless feet, Margaret ! Do you remember the October day 
('twas the first day of the hard weather), when the way-worn traveller 
entered your inn ? But the circumstances of this passion had better 
be chronicled in deathless verse. 



PEG OF LIMAVADDY. 



Riding from Coleraine 
(Famed for lovely Kitty), 

Came a Cockney bound 
Unto Derry city ; 



Weary was his soul, 
Shivering and sad he 

Bumped along the road 
Leads to Limavaddy. 



Mountains stretch'd around, 

Gloomy was their tinting, 
And the horse's hoofs 

Made a dismal dinting ; 
Wind upon the heath 

Howling was and piping, 
On the heath and bog, 

Black with many a snipe in ; 
Mid the bogs of black, 

Silver pools were flashing, 
Crows upon their sides 

Picking were and splashing. 
Cockney on the car 

Closer folds his plaidy, 
Grumbling at the road 

Leads to Limavaddy. 

Through the crashing woods 

Autumn brawl'd and bluster'd, 
Tossing round about 

Leaves the hue of mustard ; 
Yonder lay Lough Foyle, 

Which a storm was whipping, 
Covering with mist 

Lake, and shores, and shipping. 
Up and down the hill 

(Nothing could be bolder), 
Horse went with a raw, 

Bleeding on his shoulder. 
" Where are horses changed ?" 

Said I to the laddy 
Driving on the box : 

" Sir, at Limavaddy." 



Limavaddy inn's 

But a humble baithouse, 
Where you may procure 

Whisky and potatoes ; 
Landlord at the door 

Gives a smiling welcome 
To the shivering wights 

Who to his hotel come. 
Landlady within 

Sits and knits a stocking, 
With a wary foot 

Baby's cradle rocking. 

To the chimney nook, 

Having found admittance, 
There I watch a pup 

Playing with two kittens ; 
(Playing round the fire, 

Which of blazing turf is, 
Roaring to the pot 

Which bubbles with the murphies ;) 
And the cradled babe 

Fond the mother nursed it ! 
Singing it a song 

As she twists the worsted ! 

Up and down the stair 

Two more young ones patter 
(Twins were never seen 

Dirtier nor fatter) ; 
Both have mottled legs, 

Both have snubby noses, 
Both have — Here the Host 

Kindly interposes : 



PEG OF LIMAVADDY. 



3*7 



" Sure you must be froze 
With the sleet and hail, sir, 

So will you have some punch, 
Or will you have some ale, sir ? " 

Presently a maid 

Enters with the liquor, 
(Haifa pint of ale 

Frothing in a beaker). 
Gods ! I didn't know 

What my beating heart meant, 
Hebe's self I thought 

Enter'd the apartment. 
As she came she smiled, 

And the smile bewitching, 
On my word and honour, 

Lighted all the kitchen ! 

With a curtsey neat 

Greeting the new comer, 
Lovely, smiling Peg 

Offers me the rummer ; 
But my trembling hand 

Up the beaker tilted, 
And the glass of ale 

Every drop I spilt it : 
Spilt it every drop 

(Dames, who read my volumes, 
Pardon such a woi"d,) 

On my whatd'ycall'ems ! 

Witnessing the sight 

Of that dire disaster, 
Out began to laugh 

Missis, maid, and master j 
Such a merry peal, 

'Specially Miss Peg's was, 
(As the glass of ale 

Trickling down my legs was), 



That the joyful sound 
Of that ringing laughter 

Echoed in my ears 

Many a long day after. 

Such a silver peal ! 

In the meadows listening, 
You who've heard the bells 

Ringing to a christening ; 
You who ever heard 

Caradori pretty, 
Smiling like an angel 

Singing " Giovinetti," 
Fancy Peggy's laugh, 

Sweet, and clear and cheerful, 
At my pantaloons 

With half a pint of beer full ! 

When the laugh was done, 

Peg, the pretty hussy, 
Moved about the room 

Wonderfully busy ; 
Now she looks to see 

If the kettle keep hot, 
Now she rubs the spoons, 

Now she cleans the teapot j 
Now she sets the cups 

Trimly and secure, 
Now she scours a pot 

And so it was I drew her. 

Thus it was I drew her 

Scouring of a kettle. * 
(Faith ! her blushing cheeks 

Redden'd on the metal !) 
Ah ! but tis in vain 

That I try to sketch it ; 
The pot perhaps is like, 

But Peggy's face is wretched. 



* The late Mr. Pope represents Camilla as " scouring the plain" an absurd and 
useless task. Peggy's occupation with the kettle is much more simple and noble. 
The second line of this verse (whereof the author scorns to deny an obligation) is 
from the celebrated " Frithiof " of Esaias Tigner. A maiden is serving warriors to 
drink, and is standing by a shield — ." Und die Runde des Schildes ward wie das 
Magdelein roth," — perhaps the above is the best thing in both poems. 



3i8 



THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



No : the best of lead, 

And of Indian- rubber, 
Never could depict 

That sweet kettle-scrubber ! 

See her as she moves ! 

Scarce the ground she touches. 
Airy as a fay, 

Graceful as a duchess ; 



Bare her rounded arm, 

Bare her little leg is, 
Vestris never show'd 

Ankles like to Peggy's : 
Braided is her hair, 

Soft her look and modest, 
Slim her little waist 

Comfortably bodiced. 



This I do declare, 

Happy is the laddy 
Who the heart can share 

Of Peg of Limavaddy ; 
Married if she were, 

Blest would be the daddy 
Of the children fair 

Of Peg of Limavaddy ; 
Beauty is not rare 

In the land of Paddy, 
Fair beyond compare 

Is Peg of Limavaddy. 



Citizen or squire, 

Tory, Whig, or Radi- 
cal would all desire 

Peg of Limavaddy. 
Had I Homer's fire, 

Or that of Sergeant Taddy, 
Meetly I'd admire 

Peg of Limavaddy. 
And till I expire, 

Or till I grow mad, I 
Will sing unto my lyre 

Peg of Limavaddy ! 




( 3i9 ) 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

TEMPLEMOYLE — DERRY. 

From Newtown Limavaddy to Deny the traveller has many wild 
and noble prospects of Lough Foyle and the plains and mountains 
round it, and of scenes which may possibly in this country be still 
more agreeable to him — of smiling cultivation, and comfortable 
well-built villages, such as are only too rare in Ireland. Of a great 
part of this district the London Companies are landlords — the best 
of landlords, too, according to the report I could gather ; and their 
good stewardship shows itself especially in the neat villages of Muff 
and Ballikelly, through both of which I passed. In Ballikelly, 
besides numerous simple, stout, brick-built dwellings for the peasantry, 
with their shining windows and trim garden-plots, is a Presbyterian 
meeting-house, so well-built, substantial, and handsome, so different 
from the lean, pretentious, sham-Gothic ecclesiastical edifices which 
have been erected of late years in Ireland, that it can't fail to strike 
the tourist who has made architecture his study or his pleasure. 
The gentlemen's seats in the district are numerous and handsome ; 
and the whole movement along the road betokened cheerfulness and 
prosperous activity. 

As the carman had no other passengers but myself, he made no 
objection to carry me a couple of miles out of his way, through the 
village of Muff, belonging to the Grocers of London (and so hand- 
somely and comfortably built by them as to cause all Cockneys 
to exclaim, "Well done our side !") and thence to a very interesting 
institution, which was established some fifteen years since in the 
neighbourhood — the Agricultural Seminary of Templemoyle. It 
lies on a hill in a pretty wooded country, and is most curiously 
secluded from the world by the tortuousness of the road which 
approaches it. 

Of course it is not my business to report upon the agricultural 
system practised there, or to discourse on the state of the land or the 
crops; the best testimony on this subject is the fact, that the Institu- 



320 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

tion hired, at a small rental, a tract of land, which was reclaimed and 
farmed, and that of this farm the landlord has now taken possession, 
leaving the young farmers to labour on a new tract of land, for which 
they pay five times as much rent as for their former holding. But 
though a person versed in agriculture could give a far more satisfac- 
tory account of the place than one to whom such pursuits are quite 
unfamiliar, there is a great deal about the establishment which any 
citizen can remark on ; and he must be a very difficult Cockney 
indeed who won't be pleased here. 

After winding in and out, and up and down, and round about the 
eminence on which the house stands, we at last found an entrance to 
it, by a court-yard, neat, well-built, and spacious, where are the 
stables and numerous offices of the farm. The scholars were at 
dinner off a comfortable meal of boiled beef, potatoes, and cabbages, 
when I arrived ; a master was reading a book of history to them ; 
and silence, it appears, is preserved during the dinner. Seventy 
scholars were here assembled, some young, and some expanded into 
six feet and whiskers — all, however, are made to maintain exactly the 
same discipline, whether whiskered or not. 

The " head farmer " of the school, Mr. Campbell, a very intel- 
ligent Scotch gentleman, was good enough to conduct me over the 
place and the farm, and to give a history of the establishment and ' 
the course pursued there. The Seminary was founded in 1827, by 
the North-west of Ireland Society, by members of which and others 
about three thousand pounds were subscribed, and the buildings of 
the school erected. These are spacious, simple, and comfortable ; 
there is a good stone house, with airy dormitories, school-rooms, &c, 
and large and convenient offices. The establishment had, at first, 
some difficulties to contend with, and for some time did not number 
more than thirty pupils. At present, there are seventy scholars, 
paying ten pounds a year, with which sum, and the labour of the 
pupils on the farm, and the produce of it, the school is entirely sup- 
ported. The reader will, perhaps, like to see an extract from the 
Report of the school, which contains more details regarding it 



AGRICULTURAL SEMINARY OF TEMPLEMOYLE. 321 

"TEMPLEMOYLE WORK AND SCHOOL TABLE. 

" From 20th March to 2yd September. 

" Boys divided into two classes, A and B. 

Hours. At work. At school. 

53 — All rise. 

6—8 A B 

8 — 9 Breakfast. 

9—1 A B 

1 — 2 Dinner and recreation. 

2—6 B A 

6 — 7 Recreation. 

7 — 9 Prepare lessons for next day. 

9 — . To bed. 

" On Tuesday B commences work in the morning and A at school, and so on 
alternate days. 

" Each class is again subdivided into three divisions, over each of which is placed 
a monitor, selected from the steadiest and best-informed boys ; he receives the 
Head Farmer's directions as to the work to be done, and superintends his party 
while performing it. 

" In winter the time of labour is shortened according to the length of the day, 
and the hours at school increased. 

" In wet days, when the boys cannot work out, all are required to attend school. 

" Dietary. 

"Breakfast. — Eleven ounces of oatmeal made in stirabout, one pint of sweet 
milk. 

" Dinner. — Sunday — Three quarters of a pound of beef stewed with pepper and 
onions, or one half : pound of corned beef with cabbage, and three and a half pounds 
of potatoes. 

" Monday — One half-pound of pickled beef, three and a half pounds of potatoes, 
one pint of buttermilk. 

"Tuesday — Broth made of one half-pound of beef, with leeks, cabbage, and 
parsley, and three and a half pounds of potatoes. 

" Wednesday — Two ounces of butter, eight ounces of oatmeal made into bread, 
three and a half pounds of potatoes, and one pint of sweet milk. 

" Thursday — Haifa pound of pickled pork, with cabbage or turnips, and three 
and a half pounds of potatoes. 

' ' Friday— Two ounces of butter, eight ounces wheat meal made into bread, one 
pint of sweet milk or fresh buttermilk, three and a half pounds of potatoes. 

" Saturday — Two ounces of butter, one pound of potatoes mashed, eight ounces 
of wheat meal made into bread, two and a half pounds of potatoes, one pint of 
buttermilk. 

" Supper. — In summer, flummery made of one pound of oatmeal seeds, and one 
pint of sweet milk. In winter, three and a half pounds of potatoes, and one pint 
of buttermilk or sweet milk. 

21 



322 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

"Rules for the Tsmplemoyle School. 

" i. The pupils are required to say their prayers in the morning, before leaving 
the dormitory, and at night, before retiring to rest, each separately, and after the 
manner to which he has been habituated. 

" 2. The pupils are requested to wash their hands and faces before the com- 
mencement of business in the morning, on returning from agricultural labour, and 
after dinner. 

"3. The pupils are required to pay the strictest attention to their instructors, 
both during the hours of agricultural and literary occupation. 

"4. Strife, disobedience, inattention, or any description of riotous or disorderly 
conduct, is punishable by extra labour or confinement, as directed by the Committee, 
according to circumstances. 

" 5. Diligent and respectful behaviour, continued for a considerable time, will 
be rewarded by occasional permission for the pupil so distinguished to visit his 
home. 

"6. No pupil, on obtaining leave of absence, shall presume to continue it for a 
longer period than that prescribed to him on leaving the Seminary. 

" 7. During their rural labour, the pupils are to consider themselves amenable 
to the authority of their Agricultural Instructor alone, and during their attendance 
in the school-room, to that of their Literary Instructor alone. 

"8. Non-attendance during any part of the time allotted either for literary or 
agricultural employment, will be punished as a serious offence. 

" 9. During the hours of recreation the pupils are to be under the superintend- 
ence of their Instructors, and not suffered to pass beyond the limits of the farm, 
except under their guidance, or with a written permission from one of them. 

" 10. The pupils are required to make up their beds, and keep those clothes not 
in immediate use neatly folded up in their trunks, and to be particular in never 
suffering any garment, book, implement, or other article belonging to or used by 
them, to lie about in a slovenly or disorderly manner. 

" 1 1. Respect to superiors, and gentleness of demeanour, both among the pupils 
themselves and towards the servants and labourers of the establishment, are 
particularly insisted upon, and will be considered a prominent ground of approba- 
tion and reward. 

" 12. On Sundays the pupils are required to attend their respective places of 
worship, accompanied by their Instructors or Monitors ; and it is earnestly recom- 
mended to them to employ a part of the remainder of the day in sincerely reading 
the Word of God, and in such other devotional exercises as their respective 
ministers may point out." 



At certain periods of the year, when all hands are required, such 
as harvest, &c, the literary labours of the scholars are stopped, and 
they are all in the field. On the present occasion we followed them 
into a potato-field, where an army of them were employed digging 
out the potatoes ; while another regiment were trenching-in elsewhere 
for the winter : the boys were leading the carts to and fro. To reach 



TEMPLEMOYLE SCHOOL. 323 

the potatoes we had to pass a field, part of which was newly- 
ploughed : the ploughing was the work of the boys, too ; one of 
them being left with an experienced ploughman for a fortnight at a 
time, in which space the lad can acquire some practice in the art. 
Amongst the potatoes and the boys digging them, I observed a 
number of girls, taking them up as dug and removing the soil from 
the roots. Such a society for seventy young men would, "in any other 
country in the world, be not a little dangerous ; but Mr. Campbell 
said that no instance of harm had ever occurred in consequence, and 
I believe his statement may be fully relied on : the whole country 
bears testimony to this noble purity of morals. Is there any other 
in Europe which in this point can compare with it ? 

In Avinter the farm works do not occupy the pupils so much, and 
they give more time to their literary studies. They get a good 
English education ; they are grounded in arithmetic and mathematics ; 
and I saw a good map of an adjacent farm, made from actual survey 
by one of the pupils. Some of them are good draughtsmen likewise, 
but of their performances I could see no specimen, the artists being 
abroad, occupied wisely in digging the potatoes. 

And here, apropos, not of the school but of potatoes, let me tell 
a potato story, which is, I think, to the purpose, wherever it is told. 
In the county of Mayo a gentleman by the name of Crofton is a 
landed proprietor, in whose neighbourhood great distress prevailed 
among the peasantry during the spring and summer, when the 
potatoes of the last year were consumed, and before those of the 
present season were up. Mr. Crofton, by liberal donations on his 
own part, and by a subscription which was set on foot among his 
friends in England as well as in Ireland, was enabled to collect a sum 
of money sufficient to purchase meal for the people, which was given 
to them, or sold at very low prices, until the pressure of want was 
withdrawn, and the blessed potato-crop came in. Some time in 
October, a smart night's frost made Mr. Crofton think that it was 
time to take in and pit his own potatoes, and he told his steward to 
get labourers accordingly. 

Next day, on going to the potato-grounds, he found the whole 
fields swarming with people ; the whole crop was out of the ground, 
and again under it, pitted and covered, and the people gone, in a 
few hours. It was as if the -fairies that we read of in the Irish 
legends, as coming to the aid of good people and helping them in 



324 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

their labours, had taken a liking to this good landlord, and taken in 
his harvest for him. Mr. Crofton, who knew who his helpers had 
been, sent the steward to pay them their day's wages, and to thank 
them at the same time for having come to help him at a time when 
their labour was so useful to him. One and all refused a penny ; 
and their spokesman said, " They wished they could do more for 
the likes of him or his family." I have heard of many con- 
spiracies in this country ; is not this one as worthy to be told as 
any of them ? 

Round the house of Templemoyle is a pretty garden, which the 
pupils take pleasure in cultivating, filled not with fruit (for this, 
though there are seventy gardeners, the superintendent said somehow 
seldom reached a ripe state), but with kitchen herbs, and a few beds 
of pretty flowers, such as are best suited to cottage horticulture. 
Such simple carpenters' and masons' work as the young men can do 
is likewise confided to them ; and though the dietary may appear to 
the Englishman as rather a scanty one, and though the English lads 
certainly make at first very wry faces at the stirabout porridge (as 
they naturally will when first put in the presence of that abominable 
mixture), yet after a time, strange to say, they begin to find 
it actually palatable ; and the best proof of the excellence of the diet 
is, that nobody is ever ill in the institution ; colds and fevers and the 
ailments of lazy, gluttonous gentility, are unknown ; and the doctor's 
bill for the last year, for seventy pupils, amounted to thirty-five 
shillings. O beati agricaliciricB ! You do not know what it is to feel 
a little uneasy after half-a-crown's worth of raspberry-tarts, as lads do 
at the best public schools ; you don't know in what majestic polished 
hexameters the Roman poet has described your pursuits ; you are not 
fagged and flogged into Latin and Greek at the cost of two hundred 
pounds a year. Let these be the privileges of your youthful betters ; 
meanwhile content yourselves with thinking that you are preparing 
for a profession, while they are not.; that you are learning something 
useful, while they, for the most part, are not : for after all, as a man 
grows old in the world, old and fat, cricket is discovered not to be 
any longer very advantageous to him— even to have pulled in the 
Trinity boat does not in old age amount to a substantial advantage ; 
and though to read a Greek play be an immense pleasure, yet it must 
be confessed few enjoy it. In the first place, of the race of Etonians, 
and Harrovians, and Carthusians that one meets in the world, very 



TEMPLEMOYLE, OR ETON? 325 

few can read the Greek ; of those few— there are not, as I believe, 
any considerable majority of poets. Stout men in the bow-windows 
of clubs (for such young Etonians by time become) are not generally 
remarkable for a taste for ^Eschylus.* You do not hear much poetry 
in AVestminster Hall, or I believe at the bar-tables afterwards ; and if 
occasionally, in the House of Commons, Sir Robert Peel lets off a 
quotation — a pocket-pistol wadded with a leaf torn out of Horace — 
depend on it it is only to astonish the country gentlemen who don't 
understand him : and it is my firm conviction that Sir Robert no 
more cares for poetry than you or I do. 

Such thoughts would suggest themselves to a man who has had 
the benefit of what is called an education at a public school in 
England, when he sees seventy lads from all parts of the empire 
learning what his Latin poets and philosophers have informed him 
is the best of all pursuits, — finds them educated at one-twentieth 
part of the cost which has been bestowed on his own precious 
person; orderly without the necessity of submitting to degrading 
personal punishment ; young, and full of health and blood, though 
vice is unknown among them ; and brought up decently and honestly 
to know the things which it is good for them in their profession to 
know. So it is, however ; all the world is improving except the 
gentlemen. There are at this present writing five hundred boys 
at Eton, kicked, and licked, and bullied, by another hundred — 
scrubbing shoes, running errands, making false concords, and (as if 
that were a natural consequence !) putting their posteriors on a 
block for Dr. Hawtrey to lash at ; and still calling it education. 
They are proud of it — good heavens ! — absolutely vain of it ; as 
what dull barbarians are not proud of their dulness and barbarism ? 
They call it the good old English system : nothing like classics, says 
Sir John, to give a boy a taste, you know, and a habit of reading — 
(Sir John, who reads the " Racing Calendar," and belongs to a race 
of men of all the world the least given to reading,) — it's the good 
old English system ; every boy fights for himself — hardens 'em, eh, 
Jack ? Jack grins, and helps himself to another glass of claret, and 
presently tells you how Tibbs and Miller fought for an hour and 
twenty minutes " like good uns." . . . Let us come to an end, how- 

* And then, how much Latin and Greek does the public school-boy know ? 
Also, does he know anything else, and what ? Is it history, or geography, or 
mathematics, or divinity ? 



326 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

ever, of this moralizing ; the car-driver has brought the old raw- 
shouldered horse out of the stable, and says it is time to be off 
again. 

Before quitting Templemoyle, one thing more may be said in its 
favour. It is one of the very few public establishments in Ireland 
where pupils of the two religious denominations are received, and 
where no religious disputes have taken place. The pupils are called 
upon, morning and evening, to say their prayers privately. On 
Sunday, each division, Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and Episco- 
palian, is marched to its proper place of worship. The pastors of 
each sect may visit their young flock when so inclined ; and the lads 
devote the Sabbath evening to reading the books pointed out to 
them by their clergymen. 

Would not the Agricultural Society of Ireland, of the success of 
whose peaceful labours for the national prosperity every Irish news- 
paper I read brings some new indication, do well to show some 
mark of its sympathy for this excellent institution of Templemoyle ? 
A silver medal given by the Society to the most deserving pupil of 
the year, would be a great object of emulation amongst the young 
men educated at the place, and would be almost a certain passport 
for the winner in seeking for a situation in after life. I do not know 
if similar seminaries exist in England. Other seminaries of a like 
nature have been tried in this country, and have failed : but English 
country gentlemen cannot, I should think, find a better object of 
their attention than this school ; and our farmers would surely find 
such establishments of great benefit to them : where their children 
might procure a sound literary education at a small charge, and at 
the same time be made acquainted with the latest improvements in 
their profession. I can't help saying here, once more, what I have 
said apropos of the excellent school at Dundalk, and begging the 
English middle classes to think of the subject. If Government will 
not act (upon what never can be effectual, perhaps, until it become a 
national measure), let small communities act for themselves, and 
tradesmen and the middle classes set up cheap proprietary 
schools. Will country newspaper editors, into whose hands this 
book may fall, be kind enough to speak upon this hint, and extract 
the tables of the Templemoyle and Dundalk establishments, to show 
how, and with what small means, boys may be well, soundly, and 
humanely educated — not brutally, as some of us have been, under 



DERRY. 3V 

the bitter fagging and the shameful rod. It is no plea for the 
barbarity that use has made us accustomed to it ; and in seeing 
these institutions for humble lads, where the system taught is at 
once useful, manly, and kindly, and thinking of what I had under- 
gone in my own youth, — of the frivolous monkish trifling in which 
it was wasted, of the brutal tyranny to which it was subjected, — 
I could not look at the lads but with a sort of envy : please God, 
their lot will be shared by thousands of their equals and their betters 
before long ! 

It was a proud day for Dundalk, Mr. Thackeray well said, when, 
at the end of one of the vacations there, fourteen English boys, and 
an Englishman with his little son in his hand, landed from the Liver- 
pool packet, and, walking through the streets of the town, went into 
the school-house quite happy. That was a proud day in truth for a 
distant Irish town, and I can't help saying that I grudge them the 
cause of their pride somewhat. Why should there not be schools in 
England as good, and as cheap, and as happy ? 

With this, shaking Mr. Campbell gratefully by the hand, and 
begging all English tourists to go and visit his establishment, we 
trotted off for Londonderry, leaving at about a mile's distance from 
the town, and at the pretty lodge of Saint Columb's, a letter, which 
was the cause of much delightful hospitality. 

Saint Columb's Chapel, the walls of which still stand pictur- 
esquely in Sir George Hill's park, and from which that gentleman's 
seat takes its name, was here since the sixth century. It is but fair 
to give precedence to the mention of the old abbey, which was the 
father, as it would seem, of the town. The approach to the latter 
from three quarters, certainly, by which various avenues I had 
occasion to see it, is always noble. We had seen the spire of the 
cathedral peering over the hills for four miles on our way ; it stands, 
a stalwart and handsome building, upon an eminence, round which 
the old-fashioned stout red houses of the town cluster, girt in with 
the ramparts and walls that kept out James's soldiers of old. Quays, 
factories, huge red warehouses, have grown round this famous old 
barrier, and now stretch along the river. A couple of large steamers 
and other craft lay within the bridge ; and, as we passed over that 
stout wooden edifice, stretching eleven hundred feet across the noble 
expanse of the Foyle, we heard along the quays a great thundering 
and clattering of iron-work in an enormous steam frigate which has 



328 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

been built in Deny, and seems to lie alongside a whole street of 
houses. The suburb, too, through which we passed was bustling and 
comfortable ; and the view was not only pleasing from its natural 
beauties, but has a manly, thriving, honest air of prosperity, which is 
no bad feature, surely, for a landscape. 

Nor does the town itself, as one enters it, belie, as many other 
Irish towns do, its first flourishing look. It is not splendid, but 
comfortable ; a brisk movement in the streets : good downright 
shops, without particularly grand titles ; few beggars. Nor have the 
common people, as they address you, that eager smile, — that manner 
of compound fawning and swaggering, which an Englishman finds in 
the townspeople of the West and South. As in the North of Eng- 
land, too, when compared with other districts, the people are greatly 
more familiar, though by no means disrespectful to the stranger. 

On the other hand, after such a commerce as a traveller has with 
the race of waiters, postboys, porters, and the like (and it may be 
that the vast race of postboys, &c, whom I did not see in the North, 
are quite unlike those unlucky specimens with whom I came in 
contact), I was struck by their excessive greediness after the traveller's 
gratuities, and their fierce dissatisfaction if not sufficiently rewarded. 
To the gentleman who brushed my clothes at the comfortable hotel 
at Belfast, and carried my bags to the coach, I tendered the sum of 
two shillings, which seemed to me quite a sufficient reward for his 
services : he battled and brawled with me for more, and got it too ; 
for a street-dispute with a porter calls together a number of delighted 
bystanders, whose remarks and company are by no means agreeable 
to a solitary gentleman. Then, again, there was the famous case of 
Boots of Ballycastle, which, being upon the subject, I may as well men- 
tion here : Boots of Ballycastle, that romantic little village near the 
Giant's Causeway, had cleaned a pair of shoes for me certainly, but 
declined either to brush my clothes, or to carry down my two carpet- 
bags to the car ; leaving me to perform those offices for myself, which 
I did : and indeed they were not very difficult. But immediately I 
was seated on the car, Mr. Boots stepped forward and wrapped a 
mackintosh very considerately round me, and begged me at the same 
time to " remember him." 

There was an old beggar-woman standing by, to whom I had a 
desire to present a penny ; and having no coin of that value, I 
begged Mr. Boots, out of a sixpence which I tendered to him, to 



HOTEL PIETY. 329 

subtract a penny, and present it to the old lady in question. 
Mr. Boots took the money, looked at me, and his countenance, not 
naturally good-humoured, assumed an expression of the most indignant 
contempt and hatred as he said, " I'm thinking I've no call to give my 
money away. Sixpence is my right for what I've done." 

"Sir," says I, "you must remember that you did but black one 
pair of shoes, and that you blacked them very badly too." 

" Sixpence is my right," says Boots ; " a gentleman would give me 
sixpence ! " and though I represented to him that a pair of shoes 
might be blacked in a minute — that fivepence a minute was not 
usual wages in the country — that many gentlemen, half-pay officers, 
briefless barristers, unfortunate literary gentlemen, would gladly black 
twelve pairs of shoes per diem if rewarded with five shillings for so 
doing, there was no means of convincing Mr. Boots. I then 
demanded back the sixpence, which proposal, however, he declined, 
saying, after a struggle, he would give the money, but a gentle- 
man would have given sixpence ; and so left me with furious rage 
and contempt. 

As for the city of Deny, a carman who drove me one mile out to 
dinner at a gentleman's house, where he himself was provided with a 
comfortable meal, was dissatisfied with eighteenpence, vowing that a 
" dinner job " was always paid half-a-erown, and not only asserted 
this, but continued to assert it for a quarter of an hour with the most 
noble though unsuccessful perseverance. A second car-boy, to whom 
I gave a shilling for a drive of two miles altogether, attacked me 
because I gave the other boy eighteenpence ; and the porter who 
brought my bags fifty yards from the coach, entertained me with a 
dialogue that lasted at least a couple of minutes, and said, " I should 
have had sixpence for carrying one of 'em." 

For the car which carried me two miles the landlord of the inn 
made me pay the sum of five shillings. He is a godly landlord, has 
Bibles in the coffee-room, the drawing-room, and every bed-room in 
the house, with this inscription — 

UT MIGRATURUS HABITA. 

THE TRAVELLER'S TRUE REFUGE. 

Jones's Hotel, Londonderry. 

This pious double or triple entendre, the reader will, no doubt, 
admire — the first simile establishing the resemblance between this life 



33° THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

and an inn ; the second allegory showing that the inn and the Bible 
are both the traveller's refuge. 

In life we are in death — the hotel in question is about as gay as 
a family vault : a severe figure of a landlord, in seedy black, is 
occasionally seen in the dark passages or on the creaking old stairs 
of the black inn. He does not bow to you — very few landlords in 
Ireland condescend to acknowledge their guests — he only warns you : 
- — a silent solemn gentleman who looks to be something between a 
clergyman and a sexton — " ut migraturus habita ! " — the " migraturus" 
was a vast comfort in the clause. 

It must, however, be said, for the consolation of future travellers, 
that when at evening, in the old lonely parlour of the inn, the great 
gaunt fireplace is filled with coals, two dreary funereal candles and 
sticks glimmering upon the old-fashioned round table, the rain 
pattering fiercely without, the wind roaring and thumping in the 
streets, this worthy gentleman can produce a pint of port-wine for 
the use of his migratory guest, which causes the latter to be almost 
reconciled to the cemetery in which he is resting himself, and he 
finds himself, to his surprise, almost cheerful. There is a mouldy- 
looking old kitchen, too, which, strange to say, sends out an excellent 
comfortable dinner, so that the sensation of fear gradually wears off. 

As in Chester, the ramparts of the town form a pleasant 
promenade ; and the batteries, with a few of the cannon, are pre- 
served, with which the stout 'prentice boys of Derry beat off King 
James in '88. The guns bear the names of the London Companies 
— venerable Cockney titles ! It is pleasant for a Londoner to read 
them, and see how, at a pinch, the sturdy citizens can do their work. 

The public buildings of Derry are, I think, among the best I 
have seen in Ireland ; and the Lunatic Asylum, especially, is to be 
pointed out as a model of neatness and comfort. When will the 
middle classes be allowed to send their own afflicted relatives to 
public institutions of this excellent kind, where violence is never 
practised — where it is never to the interest of the keeper of the 
asylum to exaggerate his patient's malady, or to retain him in 
durance, for the sake of the enormous sums which the sufferer's 
relatives are made to pay ! The gentry of three counties which 
contribute to the Asylum have no such resource for members of their 
own body, should any be so afflicted — the condition of entering this 
admirable asylum is, that the patient must be a pauper, and on this 



HOSPITALITY. 33 1 

account he is supplied with every comfort and the best curative 
means, and his relations are in perfect security. Are the rich in any 
way so lucky ? — and if not, why not ? 

The rest of the occurrences at Derry belong, unhappily, to the 
domain of private life, and though very pleasant to recall, are not 
honestly to be printed. Otherwise, what popular descriptions might 
be written of the hospitalities of St. Columb's, of the jovialities of 
the mess of the — th Regiment, of the speeches made and the songs 
sung, and the devilled turkey at twelve o'clock, and the headache 
afterwards ; all which events could be described in an exceedingly 
facetious manner. But these amusements are to be met with in every 
other part of her Majesty's dominions ; and the only point which may 
be mentioned here as peculiar to this part of Ireland, is the difference 
of the manner of the gentry to that in the South. The Northern 
manner is far more English than that of the other provinces of Ireland 
—whether it is better for being English is a question of taste, of which 
an Englishman can scarcely be a fair judge. 



332 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

DUBLIN AT LAST. 

A wedding-party that went across Derry Bridge to the sound of bell 
and cannon, had to flounder through a thick coat of frozen snow, 
that covered the slippery planks, and the hills round about were 
whitened over by the same inclement material. Nor was the weather, 
implacable towards young lovers and unhappy buckskin postilions 
shivering in white favours, at all more polite towards the passengers 
of her Majesty's mail that runs from Derry to Ballyshannon. 

Hence the aspect of the country between those two places can 
only be described at the rate of nine miles an hour, and from such 
points of observation as may be had through a coach window, starred 
with ice and mud. While horses were changed we saw a very dirty 
town, called Strabane ; and had to visit the old house of the 
O'Donnels in Donegal during a quarter-of-an-hour's pause that the 
coach made there — and with an umbrella overhead. The pursuit of 
the picturesque under umbrellas let us leave to more venturesome 
souls : the fine weather of the finest season known for many long years 
in Ireland was over, and I thought with a great deal of yearning of 
Pat the waiter, at the " Shelburne Hotel," Stephen's Green, Dublin, 
and the gas lamps, and the covered cars, and the good dinners to 
which they take you. 

Farewell, then, O wild Donegal ! and ye stern passes through 
which the astonished traveller windeth ! Farewell, Ballyshannon, and 
thy salmon-leap, and thy bar of sand, over which the white head of 
the troubled Atlantic was peeping ! Likewise, adieu to Lough Erne, 
and its numberless green islands, and winding river-lake, and wavy 
fir-clad hills ! Good-by, moreover, neat Enniskillen, over the bridge 
and churches whereof the sun peepeth as the coach starteth from the 
inn ! See, how he shines now on Lord Belmore's stately palace and 
park, with gleaming porticoes and brilliant grassy chases : now, 
behold he is yet higher in the heavens, as the twanging horn pro- 
claims the approach to beggarly Cavan, where a beggarly breakfast 
awaits the hungry voyager. 



DINNERS IN DUBLIN. 333 

Snatching up a roll wherewith to satisfy the pangs of hunger, 
sharpened by the mockery of breakfast, the tourist now hastens in his 
arduous course, through Virginia, Kells, Navan, by Tara's thread- 
bare mountain, and Skreen's green hill ; day darkens, and a hundred 
thousand lamps twinkle in the gray horizon — see above the darkling 
trees a stumpy column rise, see on its base the name of Wellington 
(though this, because 'tis night, thou canst not, see), and cry, " It is 
the P hay nix .f" — On and on, across the iron bridge, and through the 
streets, (dear streets, though dirty, to the citizen's heart how dear you 
be !) and lo, now, with a bump, the dirty coach stops at the seedy 
inn, six ragged porters battle for the bags, six wheedling carmen 
recommend their cars, and (giving first the coachman eighteenpence) 
the Cockney says, " Drive, car-boy, to the ' Shelburne.'" 

And so having reached Dublin, it becomes necessary to curtail the 
observations which were to be made upon that city; which surely 
ought to have a volume to itself: the humours of Dublin at least 
require so much space. For instance, there was the dinner at the 
Kildare Street Club, or the Hotel opposite, — the dinner in Trinity 

College Hall, — that at Mr. , the publisher's, where a dozen of 

the literary men of Ireland were assembled, — and those (say fifty) 
with Harry Lorrequer himself, at his mansion of Templeogue. 
What a favourable opportunity to discourse upon the peculiarities of 
Irish character ! to describe men of letters, of fashion, and university 
dons ! 

Sketches of these personages may be prepared, and sent over, 
perhaps, in confidence to Mrs. Sigourney in America — (who will of 
course not print them) — but the English habit does not allow of these 
happy communications between writers and the public ; and the 
author who wishes to dine again at his friend's cost, must needs have 
a care how he puts him in print. 

Suffice it to say, that at Kildare Street we had white neckcloths, 
black waiters, wax-candles, and some of the best wine in Europe ; at 

Mr. , the publisher's, wax-candles, and some of the best wine in 

Europe ; at Mr. Lever's, wax-candles, and some of the best wine in 
Europe ; at Trinity College — but there is no need to mention what 
took place at Trinity College ; for on returning to London, and 

recounting the circumstances of the repast, my friend B , a 

Master of Arts of that university, solemnly declared the thing w r as 
impossible : — no stranger could dine at Trinity College ; it was too 



334 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

great a privilege — in a word, he would not believe the story, nor will 
he to this day ; and why, therefore, tell it in vain ? 

I am sure if the Fellows of Colleges in Oxford and Cambridge 
were told that the Fellows of T. C. D. only drink beer at dinner, 
they would not believe that. Such, however, was the fact : or 
may be it was a dream, which was followed by another dream of 
about four-and-twenty gentlemen seated round a common-room 
table after dinner ; and, by a subsequent vision of a tray of oysters 
in the apartments of a tutor of the university, sometime before 
midnight. Did we swallow them or not ?— the oysters are an open 
question. 

Of the Catholic College of Maynooth, I must likewise speak 
briefly, for the reason that an accurate description of that establish- 
ment would be of necessity so disagreeable, that it is best to pass it 
over in a few words. An Irish union-house is a palace to it. Ruin 
so needless, filth so disgusting, such a look of lazy squalor, no 
Englishman who has not seen can conceive. Lecture-room and 
dining-hall, kitchen and students'-room, were all the same. I shall 
never forget the sight of scores of shoulders of mutton lying on the 
filthy floor in the former, or the view of a bed and dressing-table that 
I saw in the other. Let the next Maynooth grant include a few 
shillings'-worth of whitewash and a few hundredweights of soap ; and 
if to this be added a half-score of drill-sergeants, to see that the 
students appear clean at lecture, and to teach them to keep their 
heads up and to look people in the face, Parliament will introduce 
some cheap reforms into the seminary, which were never needed more 
than here. Why should the place be so shamefully ruinous and foully 
dirty ? Lime is cheap, and water plenty at the canal hard by. Why 
should a stranger, after a week's stay in the country, be able to discover 
a priest by the scowl on his face, and his doubtful downcast manner ? 
Is it a point of discipline that his reverence should be made to look 
as ill-humoured as possible ? And I hope these words will not be 
taken hostilely. It would have been quite as easy, and more pleasant, 
to say the contrary, had the contrary seemed to me to have been 
the fact ; and to have declared that the priests were remarkable for 
their expression of candour, and their college for its extreme neatness 
and cleanliness. 

This complaint of neglect applies to other public institutions 
besides Maynooth. The Mansion-house, when I saw it, was a very 



THE LORD MAYOR. 



335 



dingy abode for the Right Honourable Lord Mayor, and that Lord 
Mayor Mr. O'Connell. I saw him in full council, in a brilliant robe 
of crimson velvet, ornamented with white satin bows and sable 
collar, in an enormous cocked-hat, like a slice of an eclipsed moon — 
in the following costume, in fact — 



•iiir,ii 






ill ii, 

life,-,, Vriri 1 1 




The Aldermen and Common Council, in a black oak parlour, 
and at a dingy green table, were assembled around him, and a debate 
of thrilling interest to the town ensued. It related, I think, to 
water-pipes ; the great man did not speak publicly, but was occupied 
chiefly at the end of the table, giving audiences to at least a score of 
clients and petitioners. 

The next day I saw him in the famous Corn Exchange. The 
building without has a substantial look, but the hall within is rude, 
dirty, and ill-kept. Hundreds of persons were assembled in the 
black, steaming place ; no inconsiderable share of frieze-coats were 
among them ; and many small Repealers, who could but lately have 



336 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

assumed their breeches, ragged as they were. These kept up a great 
chorus of shouting, and " hear, hear ! " at every pause in the great 
Repealer's address. Mr. O'Connell was reading a report from his 
Repeal-wardens ; which proved that when Repeal took place, com- 
merce and prosperity would instantly flow into the country ; its innu- 
merable harbours would be filled with countless ships, its immense 
water-power would be directed to the turning of myriads of mills ; its 
vast energies and resources brought into full action. At the end of 
the report, three cheers were given for Repeal, and in the midst of a 
great shouting Mr. O'Connell leaves the room. 

"Mr. Quiglan, Mr. Quiglan !" roars an active aide-de-camp to the 
door-keeper, " a covered kyar for the Lard Mayre." The covered 
car came; I saw his lordship get into it. Next day he was Lord 
Mayor no longer; but Alderman O'Connell in his state-coach, with 
the handsome grays whose manes were tied up with green ribbon, 
following the new Lord Mayor to the right honourable inauguration. 
Javelin men, city marshals (looking like military undertakers), private 
carriages, glass coaches, cars, covered and uncovered, and thousands 
of yelling ragamuffins, formed the civic procession of that faded, 
worn-out, insolvent old Dublin Corporation. 

The walls of this city had been placarded with huge notices to 
the public, that O'Connell's rent-day was at hand ; and I went round 
to all the chapels in town on that Sunday (not a little to the scandal 
of some Protestant friends), to see the popular behaviour. Every 
door was barred, of course, with plate-holders ; and heaps of pence 
at the humble entrances, and bank-notes at the front gates, told the 
willingness of the people to reward their champion. The car-boy 
who drove me had paid his little tribute of fourpence at morning 
mass ; the waiter who brought my breakfast had added to the national 
subscription with his humble shilling ; and the Catholic gentleman 
with whom 1 dined, and between whom and Mr. O'Connell there is 
no great love lost, pays his annual donation, out of gratitude for 
old services, and to the man who won Catholic Emancipation for 
Ireland. The piety of the people at the chapels is a sight, too, 
always well worthy to behold. Nor indeed is this religious fervour 
less in the Protestant places of worship : the warmth and attention 
of the congregation, the enthusiasm with which hymns are sung and 
responses uttered, contrasts curiously with the cool formality of wor- 
shippers at home. 



AMUSEMENTS. 337 

The service at St. Patrick's is finely sung ) and the shameless 
English custom of retreating after the anthem, is properly prevented 
by locking the gates, and having the music after the sermon. The 
interior of the cathedral itself, however, to an Englishman who has 
seen the neat and beautiful edifices of his own country, will be any- 
thing but an object of admiration. The greater part of the huge 
old building is suffered to remain in gaunt decay, and with its stalls 
of sham Gothic, and the tawdry old rags and gimcracks of the " most 
illustrious order of Saint Patrick," (whose pasteboard helmets, and 
calico banners, and lath swords, well characterize the humbug of 
chivalry which they are made to represent,) looks like a theatre 
behind the scenes. " Paddy's Opera," however, is a noble perform- 
ance ; and the Englishman may here listen to a half-hour sermon, 
and in the anthem to a bass singer whose voice is one of the finest 
ever heard. 

The Drama does not flourish much more in Dublin than in any 
other part of the country. Operatic stars make their appearance 
occasionally, and managers lose money. I was at a fine concert, at 
which Lablache and others performed, where there were not a 
hundred people in the pit of the pretty theatre, and where the only 
encore given was to a young woman in ringlets and yellow satin, 
who stepped forward and sang " Coming through the rye," or some 
other scientific composition, in an exceedingly small voice. On 
the nights when the regular drama was enacted, the audience 
was still smaller. The theatre of Fishamble Street was given up to 
the performances of the Rev. Mr. Gregg and his Protestant com- 
pany, whose soirees I did not attend ; and, at the Abbey Street 
Theatre, whither I went in order to see, if possible, some specimens 
of the national humour, I found a company ot English people 
ranting through a melodrama, the tragedy whereof was the only 
laughable thing to be witnessed. 

Humbler popular recreations may be seen by the curious. One 
night I paid twopence to see a puppet-show — such an entertainment 
as may have been popular a hundred and thirty years ago, and is 
described in the Spectator. But the company here assembled were 
not, it scarcely need be said, of the genteel sort. There were a score 
of boys, however, and a dozen of labouring men, who were quite 
happy and contented with the piece performed, and loudly applauded. 
Then in passing homewards of a night, you hear, at the humble 

22 



333 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

public-houses, the sound of many a fiddle, and the stamp of feet 
dancing the good old jig, which is still maintaining a struggle with 
teetotalism, and, though vanquished now, may rally some day and 
overcome the enemy. At Kingstown, especially, the old " fire- 
worshippers " yet seem to muster pretty strongly ; loud is the music 
to be heard in the taverns there, and the cries of encouragement to 
the dancers. 

Of the numberless amusements that take place in the Phaynix, it 
is not very necessary to speak. Here you may behold garrison races, 
and reviews ; lord-lieutenants in brown great-coats ; aides-de-camp 
scampering about like mad in blue; fat colonels roaring "charge" to 
immense heavy dragoons ; dark riflemen lining woods and firing ; 
galloping cannoneers banging and blazing right and left. Here 
comes his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief, with his huge feathers, 
and white hair, and hooked nose ; and yonder sits his Excellency the 
Ambassador from the republic of Topinambo in a glass coach, smoking 
a cigar. The honest Dublinites make a great deal of such small 
dignitaries as his Excellency of the glass coach ; you hear everybody 
talking of him, and asking which is he ; and when presently one of 
Sir Robert Peel's sons makes his appearance on the course, the public 
rush delighted to look at him. 

They love great folks, those honest Emerald Islanders, more 
intensely than any people I ever heard of, except the Americans. 
They still cherish the memory of the sacred George IV. They 
chronicle genteel small beer with never-failing assiduity. They go in 
long trains to a sham court — simpering in tights and bags, with swords 
between their legs. O heaven and earth, what joy ! Why are the 
Irish noblemen absentees? If their lordships like respect, where 
would they get it so well as in their own country ? 

The Irish noblemen are very likely going through the same 
delightful routine of duty before their real sovereign — in real tights 
and bag-wigs, as it were, performing their graceful and lofty duties, 
and celebrating the august service of the throne. These, of course, 
the truly loyal heart can only respect : and I think a drawing-room at 
St. James's the grandest spectacle that ever feasted the eye or exer- 
cised the intellect. The crown, surrounded by its knights and nobles, 
its priests, its sages, and their respective ladies ; illustrious foreigners, 
men learned in the law, heroes of land and sea, beef-eaters, gold- 
sticks, gentlemen-at-arniSj rallying round the throne and defending it 



GENTEEL QUARTERS. 339 

with those swords which never knew defeat (and would surely, if 
tried, secure victory) : these are sights and characters which every 
man must look upon with a thrill of respectful awe, and count amongst 
the glories of his country. What lady that sees this will not confess 
that she reads every one of the drawing-room costumes, from Majesty 
down to Miss Ann Maria Smith ; and all the names of the presenta- 
tions, from Prince Baccabocksky (by the Russian ambassador) to 
Ensign Stubbs on his appointment ? 

We are bound to read these accounts. It is our pride, our duty 
as Britons. But though one may honour the respect of the aristocracy 
of the land for the sovereign, yet there is no reason why those who 
are not of the aristocracy should be aping their betters : and the 
Dublin Castle business has, I cannot but think, a very high-life-below- 
stairs look. There is no aristocracy in Dublin. Its magnates are 
tradesmen — Sir Fiat Haustus, Sir Blacker Dosy, Mr. Serjeant Blue- 
bag, or Mr. Counsellor O'Fee. Brass plates are their titles of honour, 
and they live by their boluses or their briefs. What call have these 
worthy people to be dangling and grinning at lord-lieutenants' levees, 
and playing sham aristocracy before a sham sovereign ? Oh, that old 
humbug of a Castle ! It is the greatest sham of all the shams in 
Ireland. 

Although the season may be said to have begun, for the Courts 
are opened, and the noblesse de la robe have assembled, I do not think 
the genteel quarters of the town look much more cheerful. They 
still, for the most part, wear their faded appearance and lean, half- 
pay look. There is the beggar still dawdling here and there. Sounds 
of carriages or footmen do not deaden the clink of the burly police- 
man's boot-heels. You may see, possibly, a smutty-faced nursemaid 
leading out her little charges to walk ; or the observer may catch a 
glimpse of Mick the footman lolling at the door, and grinning as he 
talks to some dubious tradesman. Mick and John are very different 
characters externally and inwardly ; — profound essays (involving the 
histories of the two countries for a thousand years) might be written 
regarding Mick and John, and the moral and political influences 
which have developed the flunkeys of the two nations. The friend, 
too, with whom Mick talks at the door is a puzzle to a Londoner. I 
have hardly ever entered a Dublin house without meeting with some 
such character on my way in or out. He looks too shabby for a dun, 
and not exactly ragged enough for a beggar- -a doubtful, lazy, dirty 



34o THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

family vassal — a guerilla footman. I think it is he who makes a 
great noise, and whispering, and clattering, handing in the dishes to 
Mick from outside of the dining-room door. When an Irishman 
comes to London he brings Erin with him ; and ten to one you will 
find one of these queer retainers about his place. 

London one can only take leave of by degrees : the great town 
melts away into suburbs, which soften, as it were, the parting between 
the Cockney and his darling birthplace. But you pass from some of 
the stately fine Dublin streets straight into the country. After 
No. 46, Eccles Street, for instance, potatoes begin at once. You are 
on a wide green plain, diversified by occasional cabbage-plots, by 
drying-grounds white with chemises, in the midst of which the 
chartered wind is revelling; and though in the map some fanciful 
engineer has laid down streets and squares, they exist but on paper ; 
nor, indeed, can there be any need of them at present, in a quarter 
where houses are not wanted so much as people to dwell in the 
same. 

If the genteel portions of the town look to the full as melancholy 
as they did, the downright poverty ceases, I fear, to make so strong 
an impression as it made four months ago. Going over the same 
ground again, places appear to have quite a different aspect ; and, 
with their strangeness, poverty and misery have lost much of their 
terror. The people, though dirtier and more ragged, seem certainly 
happier than those in London. 

Near to the King's Court, for instance (a noble building, as are 
almost all the public edifices of the city), is a straggling green suburb, 
containing numberless little shabby, patched, broken-windowed huts, 
with rickety gardens dotted with rags that have been washed, and 
children that have not ; and thronged with all sorts of ragged 
inhabitants. Near to the suburb in the town, is a dingy old 
mysterious district, called Stoneybatter, where some houses have 
been allowed to reach an old age, extraordinary in this country of 
premature ruin, and look as if they had been built some six score 
years since. In these and the neighbouring tenements, not so old, 
but equally ruinous and mouldy, there is a sort of vermin swarm of 
humanity ; dirty faces at all the dirty windows ; children on all the 
broken steps ; smutty slipshod women clacking and bustling about, 
and old men dawdling. Well, only paint and prop the tumbling 
gates and huts in the suburb, and fancy the Stoneybatterites clean, 



NORTH DUBLIN UNION. 341 

and you would have rather a gay and agreeable picture of human 
life — of work-people and their families reposing after their labours. 
They are all happy, and sober, and kind-hearted, — they seem kind, 
and play with the children — the young women having a gay 
good-natured joke for the passer-by ; the old seemingly contented, 
and buzzing to one another. It is only the costume, as it were, that 
has frightened the stranger, and made him fancy that people so 
ragged must be unhappy. Observation grows used to the rags as 
much as the people do, and my impression of the walk through this 
district, on a sunshiny, clear, autumn evening, is that of a fete. I 
am almost ashamed it should be so. 

Near to Stoneybatter lies a group of huge gloomy edifices — an 
hospital, a penitentiary, a mad-house, and a poor-house. I visited 
the latter of these, the North Dublin Union-house, an enormous 
establishment, which accommodates two thousand beggars. Like all 
the public institutions of the country, it seems to be well conducted, 
and is a vast, orderly, and cleanly place, wherein the prisoners are 
better clothed, better fed, and better housed than they can hope to 
be when at liberty. We were taken into all the wards in due order : 
the schools and nursery for the children; the dining-rooms, day- 
rooms, &c, of the men and women. Each division is so accommo- 
dated, as also with a large court or ground to walk and exercise in. 

Among the men, there are very few able-bodied ; the most of 
them, the keeper said, having gone out for the harvest-time, or as 
soon as the potatoes came in. If they go out, they cannot return 
before the expiration of a month : the guardians have been obliged 
to establish this prohibition, lest the persons requiring relief should 
go in and out too frequently. The old men were assembled in 
considerable numbers in a long day-room that is comfortable and 
warm. Some of them were picking oakum by way of employment, 
but most of them were past work ; all such inmates of the house 
as are able-bodied being occupied upon the premises. Their hall 
was airy and as clean as brush and water could make it : the men 
equally clean, and their gray jackets and Scotch caps stout and 
warm. Thence we were le,d, with a sort of satisfaction, by the guardian, 
to the kitchen — a large room, at the end of which might be seen 
certain coppers, emitting, it must be owned, a very faint inhospitable 
smell. It was Friday, and rice-milk is the food on that day, each 
man being served with a pint-canful, of which cans a great number 



342 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

stood smoking upon stretchers — the platters were laid, each with 
its portion of salt, in the large clean dining-room hard by. " Look 
at that rice," said the keeper, taking up a bit ; " try it, sir, it's 
delicious." I'm sure I hope it is. 

The old women's room was crowded with, I should think, at least 
four hundred old ladies — neat and nice, in white clothes and caps — 
sitting demurely on benches, doing nothing for the most part ; but 
some employed, like the old men, in fiddling with the oakum. 
" There's tobacco here," says the guardian, in a loud voice ; " who's 
smoking tobacco ? " " Fait, and I wish dere was some tabaccy 
here," says one old lady, " and my service to you, Mr. Leary, and 
I hope one of the gentlemen has a snuff-box, and a pinch for a poor 
old woman." But we had no boxes ; and if any person who reads 
this visit, goes to a poor-house or lunatic asylum, let him carry a 
box, if for that day only — a pinch is like Dives's drop of water to 
those poor limboed souls. Some of the poor old creatures began to 
stand up as we came in — I can't say how painful such an honour 
seemed to me. 

There was a separate room for the able-bodied females ; and the 
place and courts were full of stout, red-cheeked, bouncing women. 
If the old ladies looked respectable, I cannot say the young ones 
were particularly good-looking ; there were some Hogarthian faces 
amongst them — sly, leering, and hideous. I fancied I could see 
only too well what these girls had been. Is it charitable or not to 
hope that such bad faces could only belong to bad women ? 

" Here, sir, is the nursery," said the guide, flinging open the door 
of a long room. There may have been eighty babies in it, with as 
many nurses and mothers. Close to the door sat one with as beautiful 
a face as I almost ever saw : she had at her breast a very sickly and 
puny child, and looked up, as we entered, with a pair of angelical 
eyes, and a face that Mr. Eastlake could paint — a face that had been 
angelical that is ; for there was the snow still, as it were, but with the 
footmark on it. I asked her how old she was — she did not know. 
She could not have been more than fifteen years, the poor child. She 
said she had been a servant — and there was no need of asking any- 
thing more about her story. I saw her grinning at one of her comrades 
as we went out of the room ; her face did not look angelical then. 
Ah, young master or old, young or old villain, who did this ! — have 
you not enough wickedness of your own to answer for, that you must 



FAREWELL TO DUBLIN. 343 

take another's sins upon your shoulders j and be this wretched child's 
sponsor in crime ? . . , . 

But this chapter must be made as short as possible: and so I will not 
say how much prouder Mr. Leary, the keeper, was of his fat pigs than 
of his paupers— how he pointed us out the burial-ground of the family 
of the poor — their coffins were quite visible through the niggardly 
mould ; and the children might peep at their fathers over the burial- 
ground-play-ground-wall — nor how we went to see the Linen Hall of 
Dublin — that huge, useless, lonely, decayed place, in the vast windy 
solitudes of which stands the simpering statue of George IV., pointing 
to some bales of shirting, over which he is supposed to extend his 
august protection. 

The cheers of the rabble hailing the new Lord Mayor were the 
last sounds that I heard in Dublin : and I quitted the kind friends I 
had made there with the sincerest regret. As for forming "an 
opinion of Ireland," such as is occasionally asked from a traveller on his 
return — that is as difficult an opinion to form as to express ; and the 
puzzle which has perplexed the gravest and wisest, may be confessed 
by a humble writer of light literature, whose aim it only was to look 
at the manners and the scenery of the country, and who does not 
venture to meddle with questions of more serious import. 

To have " an opinion about Ireland," one must begin by getting at 
the truth; and where is it to be had in the country? Or rather, there 
are two truths, the Catholic truth and the Protestant truth. The two 
parties do not see things with the same eyes. I recollect, for instance, 
a Catholic gentleman telling me that the Primate had forty-three 
thousand five hundred a year ; a Protestant clergyman gave me, 
chapter and verse, the history of a shameful perjury and malversation 
of money on the part of a Catholic priest; nor was one tale more true 
than the other. But belief is made a party business ; and the 
receiving of the archbishop's income would probably not convince the 
Catholic, any more than the clearest evidence to the contrary altered 
the Protestant's opinion. Ask about an estate : you may be sure 
almost that people will make mis-statements, or volunteer them if not 
asked. Ask a cottager about his rent, or his landlord : you cannot 
trust him. I shall never forget the glee with which a gentleman in 
Munster told me how he had sent off MM. Tocqueville and Beau- 
mont " with such a set of stories." Inglis was seized, as I am told, 
and mystified in the same way. In the midst of all these truths, 



344 THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 

attested with " I give ye my sacred honour and word," which is the 
stranger to select ? And how are we to trust philosophers who make 
theories upon such data ? 

Meanwhile it is satisfactory to know, upon testimony so general 
as to be equivalent almost to fact, that, wretched as it is, the country 
is steadily advancing, nor nearly so wretched now as it was a score of 
years since ; and let us hope that the middle c/ass, which this increase 
of prosperity must generate (and of which our laws have hitherto 
forbidden the existence in Ireland, making there a population of 
Protestant aristocracy and Catholic peasantry), will exercise the 
greatest and most beneficial influence over the country. Too 
independent to be bullied by priest or squire — having their interest 
in quiet, and alike indisposed to servility or to rebellion ; may not as 
much be hoped from the gradual formation of such a class, as from 
any legislative meddling? It is the want of the middle class that has 
rendered the squire so arrogant, and the clerical or political dema- 
gogue so powerful ; and I think Mr. O'Connell himself would say 
that the existence of such a body would do more for the steady 
acquirement of orderly freedom, than the occasional outbreak of any 
crowd, influenced by any eloquence from altar or tribune. 



END OF "THE IRISH SKETCH BOOK. 



NOTES OF A JOURNEY 



CORNHILL TO GRAND CAIRO, 

BY WAY OF 

LISBON, ATHENS, CONSTANTINOPLE, AND JERUSALEM : 

PERFORMED IN THE STEAMERS OF THE PENINSULAR 
AND ORIENTAL COMPANY. 



TO 

CAPTAIN SAMUEL LEWIS, 

OF THE 

peninsular and oriental steam navigation company's service. 

My dear Lewis, 

After a voyage, during which the captain of the ship has displayed 
uncommon courage, seamanship, affability, or other good qualities, grate- 
ful passengers often present him with a token of their esteem, in the shape 
of teapots, tankards, trays, &c. of precious metal. Among authors, 
however, bullion is a much rarer commodity than paper, whereof I beg 
you to accept a little in the shape of this small volume. It contains a 
few notes of a voyage which your skill and kindness rendered doubly 
pleasant ; and of which I don't think there is any recollection more agree- 
able than that it was the occasion of making your friendship. 

If the noble company in whose service you command (and whose 
fleet alone makes them a third-rate maritime power in Europe) should 
appoint a few admirals in their navy, I hope to hear that your flag is 
hoisted on board one of the grandest of their steamers. But, I trust, even 
there you will not forget the " Iberia," and the delightful Mediterranean 
cruise we had in her in the Autumn of 1844. 

Most faithfully yours, 

My dear Lewis, 

W. M. THACKERAY. 

London, December 24, 1845. 



PREFACE. 



On the 20th of August, 1844, the writer of this little book went to 

dine at the " Club," quite unconscious of the wonderful events 

which Fate had in store for him. 

Mr. William was there, giving a farewell dinner to his friend, 
Mr. James (now Sir James). These two asked Mr. Titmarsh to join 
company with them, and the conversation naturally fell upon the 
tour Mr. James was about to take. The Peninsular and Oriental 
Company had arranged an excursion in the Mediterranean, by which, 
in the space of a couple of months, as many men and cities were to 
be seen as Ulysses surveyed and noted in ten years. Malta, Athens, 
Smyrna, Constantinople, Jerusalem, Cairo were to be visited, and 
everybody was to be back in London by Lord Mayor's Day. 

The idea of beholding these famous places inflamed Mr. Tit- 
marsh's mind ; and the charms of such a journey were eloquently 
impressed upon him by Mr. James. " Come," said that kind and 
hospitable gentleman, " and make one of my family party ; in all 
your life you will never probably have a chance again to see so much 
in so short a time. Consider — it is as easy as a journey to Paris or to 
Baden." Mr. Titmarsh considered all these things ; but also the 
difficulties of the situation : he had but six-and-thirty hours to get 
ready for so portentous a journey — he had engagements at home — 
finally, could he afford it? In spite of these objections, however, 
with every glass of claret the enthusiasm somehow rose, and the diffi- 
culties vanished. 

But when Mr. James, to crown all, said he had no doubt that his 
friends, the Directors of the Peninsular and Oriental Company, 



350 PREFACE. 

would make Mr. Titmarsh the present of a berth for the voyage, all 
objections ceased on his part : to break his outstanding engagements 
— to write letters to his amazed family, stating that they were not to 
expect him at dinner on Saturday fortnight, as he would be at Jeru- 
salem on that day — to purchase eighteen shirts and lay in a sea stock 
of Russia ducks, — was the work of four-and-twenty hours ; and on 
the 22nd of August, the " Lady Mary Wood " was sailing from South- 
ampton with the " subject of the present memoir," quite astonished 
to find himself one of the passengers on board. 

These important statements are made partly to convince some 
incredulous friends— who insist still that the writer never went abroad 
at all, and wrote the following pages, out of pure fancy, in retirement 
at Putney ; but mainly, to give him an opportunity of thanking the 
Directors of the Company in question for a delightful excursion. 

It was one so easy, so charming, and I think profitable — it leaves 
such a store of pleasant recollections for after days — and creates so 
many new sources of interest (a newspaper letter from Beyrout, or 
Malta, or Algiers, has twice the interest now that it had formerly), — 
that I can't but recommend all persons who have time and means to 
make a similar journey — vacation idlers to extend their travels and 
pursue it : above all, young well-educated men entering life, to take 
this course, we will say, after that at college ; and, having their book- 
learning fresh in their minds, see the living people and their cities, 
and the actual aspect of Nature, along the famous shores of the 
lediterranean. 



A JOURNEY 

, FROM 

CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 



CHAPTER I. 

VIGO. 



The sun brought all the sick people out of their berths this morning, 
and the indescribable moans and noises which had been issuing from 
behind the fine painted doors on each side of the cabin happily ceased. 
Long before sunrise, I had the good fortune to discover that it was 
no longer necessary to maintain the horizontal posture, and, the very 
instant this truth was apparent, came on deck, at two o'clock in the 
morning, to see a noble full moon sinking westward, and millions of 
the most brilliant stars shining overhead. The night was so serenely 
pure, that you saw them in magnificent airy perspective ; the blue 
sky around and over them, and other more distant orbs sparkling 
above, till they glittered away faintly into the immeasurable distance. 
The ship went rolling over a heavy, sweltering, calm sea. The breeze 
was a warm and soft one ; quite different to the rigid air we had left 
behind us, two days since, off the Isle of Wight. The bell kept 
tolling its half hours, and the mate explained the mystery of watch 
and dog-watch. 

The sight of that noble scene cured all the woes and discomfitures 
of sea-sickness at once, and if there were any need to communicate 
such secrets to the public, one might tell of much more good that 



352 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

the pleasant morning-watch effected ; but there are a set of emotions 
about which a man had best be shy of talking lightly, — and the 
feelings excited by contemplating this vast, magnificent, harmonious 
Nature are among these. The view of it inspires a delight and 
ecstasy which is not only hard to describe, but which has something 
secret in. it. that a man should not utter loudly. Hope, memory, 
humility, tender yearnings towards dear friends, and inexpressible 
love and reverence towards the Power which created the infinite 
universe blazing above eternally, and the vast ocean shining and 
rolling around — fill the heart with a solemn, humble happiness, that 
a person dwelling in a city has rarely occasion to enjoy. They are 
coming away from London parties at this time : the dear little eyes are 
closed in sleep under mother's wing. How far off city cares and 
pleasures appear to be ! how small and mean they seem, dwindling 
out of sight before this magnificent brightness of Nature ! But the 
best thoughts only grow and strengthen under it. Heaven shines 
above, and the humbled spirit looks up reverently towards that 
boundless aspect of wisdom and beauty. You are at home, and with 
all at rest there, however far away they may be ; and through the 
distance the heart broods over them, bright and wakeful like yonder 
peaceful stars overhead. 

The day was as fine and calm as the night ; at seven bells, 
suddenly a bell began to toll very much like that of a country 
church, and on going on deck we found an awning raised, a desk 
with a flag flung over it close to the compass, and the ship's company 
and passengers assembled there to hear the captain read the Service 
in a manly respectful voice. This, too, was a novel and touching 
sight to me. Peaked ridges of purple mountains rose to the left of 
the ship, — Finisterre and the coast of Gallicia. The sky above was 
cloudless and shining ; the vast dark ocean smiled peacefully round 
about, and the ship went rolling over it, as the people within were 
praising the Maker of all. 

In honour of the day, it was announced that the passengers would 
be regaled with champagne at dinner ; and accordingly that exhila- 
rating liquor was served out in decent profusion, the company 
drinking the captain's health with the customary orations of compli- 
ment and acknowledgment. This feast was scarcely ended, when we 



VIGO. 353 

found ourselves rounding the headland into Vigo Bay, passing a grim 
and tall island of rocky mountains which lies in the centre of the bay. 

Whether it is that the sight of land is always welcome to weary 
mariners, after the perils and annoyances of a voyage of three days, 
or whether the place is in itself extraordinarily beautiful, need not be 
argued ; but I have seldom seen anything more charming than the 
amphitheatre of noble hills into which the ship now came — all the 
features of the landscape being lighted up with a wonderful clearness 
of air, which rarely adorns a view in our country. The sun had not 
yet set, but over the town and lofty rocky castle of Vigo a great 
ghost of a moon was faintly visible, which blazed out brighter and 
brighter as the superior luminary retired behind the purple mountains 
of the headland to rest. Before the general background of waving 
heights which encompassed the bay, rose a second semicircle of 
undulating hills, as cheerful and green as the mountains behind them 
were gray and solemn. Farms and gardens, convent towers, white 
villages and churches, and buildings that no doubt were hermitages 
once, upon the sharp peaks of the hills, shone brightly in the sun. 
The sight was delightfully cheerful, animated, and pleasing. 

Presently the captain roared out the magic words, "Stop her!" 
and the obedient vessel came to a stand-still, at some three hundred 
yards from the little town, with its white houses clambering up a 
rock, defended by the superior mountain whereon the castle stands. 
Numbers of people, arrayed in various brilliant colours of red, were 
standing on the sand close by the tumbling, shining, purple waves : 
and there we beheld, for the first time, the royal red and yellow 
standard of Spain floating on its own ground, under the guardian- 
ship of a light blue sentinel, whose musket glittered in the sun. 
Numerous boats were seen, incontinently, to put off from the little 
shore. 

And now our attention was withdrawn from the land to a sight 
of great splendour on board. This was Lieutenant Bundy, the 
guardian of her Majesty's mails, who issued from his cabin in his 
long swallow-tailed coat with anchor buttons ; his sabre clattering 
between his legs ; a magnificent shirt-collar, of several inches in 
height, rising round his good-humoured sallow face ; and above it a 
cocked hat, that shone so, I thought it was made of polished tin 
(it may have been that or. oilskin), handsomely laced with black 
worsted, and ornamented with a shining gold cord. A little squat 

2 3 



354 



A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 



boat, rowed by three ragged gallegos, came bouncing up to the ship. 
Into this Mr. Bundy and her Majesty's royal mail embarked with 
much majesty; and in the twinkling of an eye, the royal standard of 
England, about the size of a pocket-handkerchief, — and at the bows 
of the boat, the man-of-war's pennant, being a strip of bunting 
considerably under the value of a farthing, — streamed out. 




" They know that flag, sir," said the good-natured old tar, quite 
solemnly, in the evening afterwards: "they respect it, sir." The 
authority of her Majesty's lieutenant on board the steamer is stated 
to be so tremendous, that he may order it to stop, to move, to go 
larboard, starboard, or what you will; and the captain dare only 
disobey him suo periculo. 

It was agreed that a party of us should land for half-an-hour, and 
taste real Spanish chocolate on Spanish ground. We followed 
Lieutenant Bundy, but humbly in the providor's boat; that officer 
going on shore to purchase fresh eggs, milk for tea (in place of the 
slimy substitute of whipped yolk of egg which we had been using 
for our morning and evening meals), and, if possible, oysters, for 
which it is said the rocks of Vigo are famous. 

It was low tide, and the boat could not get up to the dry shore. 
Hence it was necessary to take advantage of the offers of sundry 
gallegos, who rushed barelegged into the water, to land on their 
shoulders. The approved method seems to be, to sit upon one 
shoulder only, holding on by the porter's whiskers ; and though some 
of our party were of the tallest and fattest men whereof our race is 
composed, and their living sedans exceedingly meagre and small, yet 
all were landed without accident upon the juicy sand, and forthwith 
surrounded by a host of mendicants, screaming, " I say, sir ! penny, 



SPANISH TROOPS. 355 

sir ! I say, English ! tarn your ays ! penny ! " in all voices, from 
extreme youth to the most lousy and venerable old age. When it is 
said that these beggars were as ragged as those of Ireland, and still 
more voluble, the Irish traveller will be able to form an opinion of 
their capabilities. 

Through this crowd we passed up some steep rocky steps, 
through a little low gate, where, in a little guard-house and barrack, 
a few dirty little sentinels were keeping a dirty little guard ; and by 
low-roofed, whitewashed houses, with balconies, and women in them, 
— the very same women, with the very same head-clothes, and yellow 
fans and eyes, at once sly and solemn, which Murillo painted, — by a 
neat church into which we took a peep, and, finally, into the Plaza 
del Constitucion, or grand place of the town, which may be about as 
big as that pleasing square, Pump Court, Temple. We were taken 
to an inn, of which I forget the name, and were shown from one 
chamber and storey to another, till we arrived at that apartment where 
the real Spanish chocolate was finally to be served out. All these 
rooms were as clean as scrubbing and whitewash could make them ; 
with simple French prints (with Spanish titles) on the walls ; a few 
rickety half-finished articles of furniture ; and, finally, an air of 
extremely respectable poverty. A jolly, black-eyed, yellow-shawled 
Dulcinea conducted us through the apartment, and provided us with 
the desired refreshment. 

Sounds of clarions drew our eyes to the Place of the Constitution ; 
and, indeed, I had forgotten to say, that that majestic square was 
filled with military, with exceedingly small firelocks, the men ludi- 
crously young and diminutive for the most part, in a uniform at once 
cheap and tawdry, — like those supplied to the warriors at Astley's, or 
from still humbler theatrical wardrobes : indeed, the whole scene was 
just like that of a little theatre ; the houses curiously small, with 
arcades and balconies, out of which looked women apparently a 
great deal- too big for the chambers they inhabited ; the warriors 
were in ginghams, cottons, and tinsel ; the officers had huge epaulets 
of sham silver lace drooping over their bosoms, and looked as if 
they were attired at a very small expense. Only the general — the 
captain-general (Pooch, they told us, was his name : I know not 
how 'tis written in Spanish) — was well got up, with a smart hat, a 
real feather, huge stars glittering on his portly chest, and tights and 
boots of the first order. Presently, after a good deal of trumpeting, 



356 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

the little men marched off the place, Pooch and his staff coming 
into the very inn in which we were awaiting our chocolate. 

Then we had an opportunity of 6eeing some of the civilians of 
the town. Three or four ladies passed, with fan and mantle ; to 
them came three or four dandies, dressed smartly in the French 
fashion, with strong Jewish physiognomies. There was one, a 
solemn lean fellow in black, with his collars extremely turned over, 
and holding before him a long ivory-tipped ebony cane, who tripped 
along the little place with a solemn smirk, which gave one an 
indescribable feeling of the truth of Gil Bias, and of those delightful 
bachelors and licentiates who have appeared to us all in our dreams. 

In fact we were but half-an-hour in this little queer Spanish 
town ; and it appeared like a dream, too, or a little show got up to 
amuse us. Boom ! the gun fired at the end of the funny little enter- 
tainment. The women and the balconies, the beggars and the 
walking Murillos, Pooch and the little soldiers in tinsel, disappeared, 
and were shut up in their box again. Once more we were carried on 
the beggars' shoulders out off the shore, and we found ourselves again 
in the great stalwart roast-beef world ; the stout British steamer 
bearing out of the bay, whose purple waters had grown more purple. 
The sun had set by this time, and the moon above was twice as big 
and bright as our degenerate moons are. 

The providor had already returned with his fresh stores, and 
Bundy's tin hat was popped into its case, and he walking the deck of 
the packet denuded of tails. As we went out of the bay, occurred a 
little incident with which the great incidents of the day may be said to 
wind up. We saw before us a little vessel, tumbling and plunging 
about in the dark waters of the bay, with a bright light beaming 
from the mast. It made for us at about a couple of miles from the 
town, and came close up, flouncing and bobbing in the very jaws of 
the paddle, which looked as if it would have seized and twirled 
round that little boat and its light, and destroyed them for ever and 
ever. All the passengers, of course, came crowding to the ship's side 
to look at the bold little boat. 

" I say ! " howled a man ; " I say ! — a word ! — I say ! Pasagero ! 
Pasagero ! Pasage-e-ero ! " We were two hundred yards ahead by 
this time. 

" Go on," says the captain. 



AFLOAT. 357 

" You may stop if you like," says Lieutenant Bundy, exerting his 
tremendous responsibility. It is evident that the lieutenant has a soft 
heart, and felt for the poor devil in the boat who was howling so 
piteously " Pasagero ! " 

But the captain was resolute. His duty was not to take the man 
up. He was evidently an irregular customer — some one trying to 
escape, possibly. 

The lieutenant turned away, but did not make any further hints. 
The captain was right ; but we all felt somehow disappointed, and 
looked back wistfully at the little boat, jumping up and down far 
astern now ; the poor little light shining in vain, and the poor wretch 
within screaming out in the most heart-rending accents a last faint 
desperate " I say ! Pasagero-o ! " 

We all went down to tea rather melancholy ; but the new milk, 
in the place of that abominable whipped egg, revived us again ; and 
so ended the great events onboard the " Lady Mary Wood" steamer, 
on the 25th August, 1844. 



358 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 



CHAPTER II. 

LISBON — CADIZ. 

A great misfortune which befals a man who has but a single day to 
stay in a town, is that fatal duty which superstition entails upon him 
of visiting the chief lions of the city in which he may happen to be. 
You must go through the ceremony, however much you may sigh to 
avoid it ; and however much you know that the lions in one capital roar 
very much like the lions in another ; that the churches are more or less 
large and splendid, the palaces pretty spacious, all the world over ; 
and that there is scarcely a capital city in this Europe but has its 
pompous bronze statue or two of some periwigged, hook-nosed 
emperor, in a Roman habit, waving his bronze baton on his broad- 
flanked brazen charger. We only saw these state old lions in Lisbon, 
whose roar has long since ceased to frighten one. First we went to 
the Church of St. Roch, to see a famous piece of mosaic-work there. 
It is a famous work of art, and was bought by I don't know what king 
for I don't know how much money. All this information may be 
perfectly relied on, though the fact is, we did not see the mosaic- 
work : the sacristan, who guards it, was yet in bed ; and it was veiled 
from our eyes in a side-chapel by great dirty damask curtains, which 
could not be removed, except when the sacristan's toilette was done, 
and at the price of a dollar. So we were spared this mosaic exhibi- 
tion ; and I think I always feel relieved when such an event occurs. 
I feel I have done my duty in coming to see the enormous animal ; 
if he is not at home, virtute mea me, &>c. — we have done our best, 
and mortal can do no more. 

In order to reach that church of the forbidden mosaic, we had 
sweated up several most steep and dusty streets — hot and dusty, 
although it was but nine o'clock in the morning. Thence the guide 
conducted us into some little dust-powdered gardens, in which 
the people make believe to enjoy the verdure, and whence you look 
over a great part of the arid, dreary, stony city. There was no smoke, 
as in honest London, only dust — dust over the gaunt houses and the 



LISBON. 359 

dismal yellow strips of gardens. Many churches were there, and 
tall, half-baked-looking public edifices, that had a dry, uncomfortable, 
earthquaky look, to my idea. The ground-floors of the spacious 
houses by which we passed seemed the coolest and pleasantest 
portions of the mansion. They were cellars or warehouses, for the 
most part, in which white-jacketed clerks sat smoking easy cigars. 
The streets were plastered with placards of a bull-fight, to take place 
the next evening (there was no opera at that season) ; but it was not 
a real Spanish tauromachy — only a theatrical combat, as you could 
see by the picture in which the horseman was cantering off at three 
miles an hour, the bull tripping after him with tips to his gentle 
horns. Mules interminable, and almost all excellently sleek and 
handsome, were pacing down every street : here and there, but later 
in the day, came clattering along a smart rider on a prancing 
Spanish horse ; and in the afternoon a few families might be seen in 
the queerest old-fashioned little carriages, drawn by their jolly mules 
and swinging between, or rather before, enormous wheels. 

The churches I saw were of the florid periwig architecture — I 
mean of that pompous, cauliflower kind of ornament which was the 
fashion in Louis the Fifteenth's time, at which unlucky period a 
building mania seems to have seized upon many of the monarchs of 
Europe, and innumerable public edifices were erected. It seems to 
me to have been the period in all history when society was the least 
natural, and perhaps the most dissolute ; and I have always fancied 
that the bloated artificial forms of the architecture partake of the 
social disorganization of the time. Who can respect a simpering 
ninny, grinning in a Roman dress and a full-bottomed wig, who is 
made to pass off for a hero ; or a fat woman in a hoop, and of a most 
doubtful virtue, who leers at you as a goddess ? In the palaces 
which we saw, several court allegories were represented, which, 
atrocious as they were in point of art, might yet serve to attract the 
regard of the moralizer. There were Faith, Hope, and Charity 
restoring Don John to the arms of his happy Portugal : there were 
Virtue, Valour, and Victory saluting Don Emanuel : Reading, Writing, 
and Arithmetic (for what I know, or some mythologic nymphs) 
dancing before Don Miguel — the picture is there still, at the Ajuda ; 
and ah me ! where is poor Mig ? Well, it is these state lies and 
ceremonies that we persist in going to see ; whereas a man would 
have a much better insight into Portuguese manners, by planting 



360 A JOURNEY FRO At CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

himself at a corner, like yonder beggar, and watching the real trans- 
actions of the day. 

A drive to Belem is the regular route practised by the traveller 
who has to make only a short stay, and accordingly a couple of 
carriages were provided for our party, and we were driven through 
the long merry street of Belem, peopled by endless strings of mules, 
— by thousands of gallegos, with water-barrels on their shoulders, or 
lounging by the fountains to hire, — by the Lisbon and Belem omni- 
buses, with four mules, jingling along at a good pace ; and it seemed 
to me to present a far more lively and cheerful, though not so regular, 
an appearance as the stately quarters of the city we had left behind 
us. The little shops were at full work — the men brown, well-dressed, 
manly, and handsome : so much cannot, I am sorry to say, be said 
for the ladies, of whom, with every anxiety to do so, our party could 
not perceive a single good-looking specimen all day. The noble 
blue Tagus accompanies you all along these three miles of busy, 
pleasant street, whereof the chief charm, as I thought, was its look of 
genuine business — that appearance of comfort which the cleverest 
court-architect never knows how to give. 

The carriages (the canvas one with four seats and the chaise in 
which I drove) were brought suddenly up to a gate with the royal 
arms over it ; and here we were introduced to as queer an exhibition 
as the eye has often looked on. This was the state-carriage house, 
where there is a museum of huge old tumble-down gilded coaches 
of the last century, lying here, mouldy and dark, in a sort of limbo. 
The gold has vanished from the great lumbering old wheels and 
panels ; the velvets are wofully tarnished. When one thinks of the 
patches and powder that have simpered out of those plate-glass 
windows — the mitred bishops, the big-wigged marshals, the shovel- 
hatted abbe's which they have borne in their time — the human mind 
becomes affected in no ordinary degree. Some human minds heave 
a sigh for the glories of bygone days ; while others, considering 
rather the lies and humbug, the vice and servility, which went framed 
and glazed and enshrined, creaking along in those old Juggernaut 
cars, with fools worshipping under the wheels, console themselves for 
the decay of institutions that may have been splendid and costly, but 
were ponderous, clumsy, slow, and unfit for daily wear. The 
guardian of these defunct old carriages tells some prodigious fibs 
concerning them : he pointed out one carriage that was six hundred 



A SCHOOL. 361 

years old in his calendar ; but any connoisseur in bricabrac can see it 
was built at Paris in the Regent Orleans' time. 

Hence it is but a step to an institution in full life and vigour, — 
a noble orphan-school for one thousand boys and girls, founded by 
Don Pedro, who gave up to its use the superb convent of Belem, 
with its splendid cloisters, vast airy dormitories, and magnificent 
church. Some Oxford gentlemen would have wept to see the 
desecrated edifice, — to think that the shaven polls and white gowns 
were banished from it to give place to a thousand children, who have 
not even the clergy to instruct them. " Every lad here may choose 
his trade," our little informant said, who addressed us in better 
French than any of our party spoke, whose manners were perfectly 
gentlemanlike and respectful, and whose clothes, though of a common 
cotton stuff, were cut and worn with a military neatness and precision. 
All the children whom we remarked were dressed with similar neat- 
ness, and it was a pleasure to go through their various rooms for study, 
where some were busy at mathematics, some at drawing, some 
attending a lecture on tailoring, while others were sitting at the feet 
of a professor of the science of shoemaking. All the garments of 
the establishment were made by the pupils ; even the deaf and 
dumb were drawing and reading, and the blind were, for the most 
part, set to perform on musical instruments, and got up a concert for 
the visitors. It was then we wished ourselves of the numbers of the 
deaf and dumb, for the poor fellows made noises so horrible, that 
even as blind beggars they could hardly get a livelihood in the 
musical way. 

Hence we were driven to the huge palace of Necessidades, which 
is but a wing of a building that no King of Portugal ought ever to be 
rich enough to complete, and which, if perfect, might outvie the 
Tower of Babel. The mines of Brazil must have been productive of 
gold and silver indeed when the founder imagined this enormous 
edifice. From the elevation on which it stands it commands the 
noblest views, — the city is spread before it, with its many churches 
and towers, and for many miles you see the magnificent Tagus, 
rolling by banks crowned with trees and towers. But to arrive at 
this enormous building you have to climb a steep suburb of wretched 
huts, many of them with dismal gardens of dry, cracked earth, where 
a few reedy sprouts of Indian corn seemed to be the chief cultivation, 



362 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

and which were guarded by huge plants of spiky aloes, on which the 
rags of the proprietors of the huts were sunning themselves. The 
terrace before the palace was similarly encroached upon by these 
wretched habitations. A few millions judiciously expended might 
make of this arid hill one of the most magnificent gardens in the 
world ; and the palace seems to me to excel for situation any royal 
edifice I have ever seen. But the huts of these swarming poor have 
crawled up close to its gates, — the superb walls of hewn stone stop 
all of a sudden with a lath-and-plaster hitch ; and capitals, and hewn 
stones for columns, still lying about on the deserted terrace, may lie 
there for ages to come, probably, and never take their places by the 
side of their brethren in yonder tall bankrupt galleries. The air of 
this pure sky has little effect upon the edifices, — the edges of the 
stone look as sharp as if the builders had just left their work ; and 
close to the grand entrance stands an outbuilding, part of which may 
have been burnt fifty years ago, but is in such cheerful preservation 
that you might fancy the fire had occurred yesterday. It must have 
been an awful sight from this hill to have looked at the city spread 
before it, and seen it reeling and swaying in the time of the earth- 
quake. I thought it looked so hot and shaky, that one might fancy 
a return of the fit. In several places still remain gaps and chasms, and 
ruins lie here and there as they cracked and fell. 

Although the palace has not attained anything like its full growth, 
yet what exists is quite big enough for the monarch of such a little 
country ; and Versailles or Windsor has not apartments more nobly 
proportioned. The Queen resides in the Ajuda, a building of much 
less pretensions, of which the yellow walls and beautiful gardens are 
seen between Belem and the city. The Necessidades are only used 
for grand galas, receptions of ambassadors, and ceremonies of state. 
In the throne-room is a huge throne, surmounted by an enormous gilt 
crown, than which I have never seen anything larger in the finest panto- 
mime at Drury Lane ; but the effect of this splendid piece is lessened 
by a shabby old Brussels carpet, almost the only other article of 
furniture in the apartment, and not quite large enough to cover its 
spacious floor. The looms of Kidderminster have supplied the web 
which ornaments the "Ambassadors' Waiting-Room," and the ceilings 
are painted with huge allegories in distemper, which pretty well corre- 
spond with the other furniture. Of all the undignified objects in the 
world, a palace out at elbows is surely the meanest. Such places ought 



THE PALACE. 363 

not to be seen in adversity, — splendour is their decency, — and when 
no longer able to maintain it, they should sink to the level of their 
means, calmly subside into manufactories, or go shabby in seclusion. 

There is a picture-gallery belonging to the palace that is quite of 
a piece with the furniture, where are the mythological pieces relative 
to the kings before alluded to, and where the English visitor will see 
some astonishing pictures of the Duke of Wellington, done in a very 
characteristic style of Portuguese art. There is also a chapel, which 
has been decorated with much care and sumptuousness of ornament, 
— the altar surmounted by a ghastly and horrible carved figure in the 
taste of the time when faith was strengthened by the shrieks of Jews 
on the rack, and enlivened by the roasting of heretics. Other such 
frightful images may be seen in the churches of the city ; those which 
we saw were still rich, tawdry, and splendid to outward show, although 
the French, as usual, had robbed their shrines of their gold and silver, 
and the statues of their jewels and crowns. But brass and tinsel look 
to the visitor full as well at a little distance, — as doubtless Soult and 
Junot thought, when they despoiled these places of worship, like 
French philosophers as they were. 

A friend, with a classical turn of mind, was bent upon seeing the 
aqueduct, whither we went on a dismal excursion of three hours, in 
the worst carriages, over the most diabolical clattering roads, up and 
down dreary parched hills, on which grew a few gray olive-trees and 
many aloes. When we arrived, the gate leading to the aqueduct was 
closed, and we were entertained with a legend of some respectable 
character who had made a good livelihood there for some time past 
lately, having a private key to this very aqueduct, and lying in wait 
there for unwary travellers like ourselves, whom he pitched down the 
arches into the ravines below, and there robbed them at leisure. So 
that all we saw was the door and the tall arches of the aqueduct, and 
by the time we returned to town it was time to go on board the ship 
again. If the inn at which we had sojourned was not of the best 
quality, the bill, at least, would have done honour to the first esta- 
blishment in London. We all left the house of entertainment joyfully, 
glad to get out of the sun-burnt city and go home. Yonder in the 
steamer was home, with its black funnel and gilt portraiture of " Lady 
Mary Wood " at the bows ; and every soul on board felt glad to 
return to the friendly little vessel. But the authorities of Lisbon, 
however, are very suspicious of the departing stranger, and we were 



364 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

made to lie an hour in the river before the Sanita boat, where a pass- 
port is necessary to be procured before the traveller can quit the 
country. Boat after boat, laden with priests and peasantry, with 
handsome red-sashed gallegos clad in brown, and ill-favoured women, 
came and got their permits, and were off, as we lay bumping up against 
the old hull of the Sanita boat : but the officers seemed to take a delight 
in keeping us there bumping, looked at us quite calmly over the ship's 
sides, and smoked their cigars without the least attention to the prayers 
which we shrieked out for release. 

If we were glad to get away from Lisbon, we were quite as sorry 
to be obliged to quit Cadiz, which we reached the next night, and 
where we were allowed a couple of hours' leave to land and look 
about. It seemed as handsome within as it is stately without ; the 
long narrow streets of an admirable cleanliness, many of the tall 
houses of rich and noble decorations, and all looking as if the city 
were in full prosperity. I have seen no more cheerful and animated 
sight than the long street leading from the quay where we were 
landed, and the market blazing in sunshine, piled with fruit, fish, and 
poultry, under many-coloured awnings ; the tall white houses with 
their balconies and galleries shining round about, and the sky above 
so blue that the best cobalt in all the paint-box looks muddy and dim 
in comparison to it. There were pictures for a year in that market- 
place — from the copper-coloured old hags and beggars who roared to 
you for the love of heaven to give money, to the swaggering dandies 
of the market, with red sashes and tight clothes, looking on superbly, 
with a hand on the hip and a cigar in the mouth. These must be 
the chief critics at the great bull-fight house yonder by the Alameda, 
with its scanty trees and cool breezes facing the water. Nor are 
there any corks to the bulls' horns here as at Lisbon. A small old 
English guide who seized upon me the moment my foot was on shore, 
had a store of agreeable legends regarding the bulls, men, and horses 
that had been killed with unbounded profusion in the late entertain- 
ments which have taken place. 

It was so early an hour in the morning that the shops were 
scarcely opened as yet ; the churches, however, stood open for the 
faithful, and we met scores of women tripping towards them with 
pretty feet, and smart black mantillas, from which looked out fine 
dark eyes and handsome pale faces, very different from the coarse 



CADIZ. 365 

brown countenances we had seen at Lisbon. A very handsome 
modern cathedral, built by the present bishop at his own charges, 
was the finest of the public edifices we saw ; it was not, however, 
nearly so much frequented as another little church, crowded with 
altars and fantastic ornaments, and lights and gilding, where we were 
told to look behind a huge iron grille, and beheld a bevy of black 
nuns kneeling. Most of the good ladies in the front ranks stopped 
their devotions, and looked at the strangers with as much curiosity as 
we directed at them through the gloomy bars of their chapel. The 
men's convents are closed ; that which contains the famous Murillos 
has been turned into an academy of the fine arts ; but the English 
guide did not think the pictures were of sufficient interest to detain 
strangers, and so hurried us back to the shore, and grumbled at only 
getting three shillings at parting for his trouble and his information. 
And so our residence in Andalusia began and ended before breakfast, 
and we went on board and steamed for Gibraltar, looking, as we 
passed, at Joinville's black squadron, and the white houses of 
St. Mary's across the bay, with the hills of Medina Sidonia and 
Granada lying purple beyond them. There's something even in 
those names which is pleasant to write down ; to have passed only 
two hours in Cadiz is something — to have seen real donnas with 
comb and mantle — real caballeros with cloak and cigar — real Spanish 
barbers lathering out of brass basins, — and to have heard guitars 
under the balconies : there was one that an old beggar was jangling 
in the market, whilst a huge leering fellow in bushy whiskers and a 
faded velvet dress came singing and jumping after our party, — not 
singing to a guitar, it is true, but imitating one capitally with his 
voice, and cracking his fingers by way of castanets, and performing a 
dance such as Figaro or Lablache might envy. How clear that 
fellow's voice thrums on the ear even now ; and how bright and 
pleasant remains the recollection of the fine city and the blue sea, 
and the Spanish flags floating on the boats that danced over it, 
and Joinville's band beginning to play stirring marches as we puffed 
out of the bay. 

The next stage was Gibraltar, where we were to change horses. 
Before sunset we skirted along the dark savage mountains of the 
African coast, and came to the Rock just before gun-fire. It is the 
very image of an enormous" lion, crouched between the Atlantic and 



366 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

the Mediterranean, and set there to guard the passage for its British 
mistress. The next British lion is Malta, four days further on in the 
Midland Sea, and ready to spring upon Egypt or pounce upon Syria, 
or roar so as to be heard at Marseilles in case of need. 

To the eyes of the civilian the first-named of these famous 
fortifications is by far the most imposing. The Rock looks so 
tremendous, that to ascend it, even without the compliment of shells 
or shot, seems a dreadful task — what would it be when all those 
mysterious lines of batteries were vomiting fire and brimstone ; when 
all those dark guns that you see poking their grim heads out of every 
imaginable cleft and zigzag should salute you with shot, both hot and 
cold ; and when, after tugging up the hideous perpendicular place, 
you were to find regiments of British grenadiers ready to plunge 
bayonets into your poor panting stomach, and let out artificially the 
little breath left there? It is a marvel to think that soldiers will 
mount such places for a shilling — ensigns for five and ninepence — 
a day : a cabman would ask double the money to go half way ! One 
meekly reflects upon the above strange truths, leaning over the ship's 
side, and looking up the huge mountain, from the tower nestled at 
the foot of it to the thin flagstaff at the summit, up to which have 
been piled the most ingenious edifices for murder Christian science 
ever adopted. My hobby-horse is a quiet beast, suited for Park 
riding, or a gentle trot to Putney and back to a snug stable, and 
plenty of feeds of corn : — it can't abide climbing hills, and is not at 
all used to gunpowder. Some men's animals are so spirited that the 
very appearance of a stone-wall sets them jumping at it ; regular 
chargers of hobbies, which snort and say — "Ha, ha!" at the mere 
notion of a battle. 



( 367 ) 



CHAPTER III. 

THE " LADY MARY WOOD." 

Our week's voyage is now drawing to a close. We have just 
been to look at Cape Trafalgar, shining white over the finest blue 
sea. (We, who were looking at Trafalgar Square only the other day!) 
The sight of that cape must have disgusted Joinville and his fleet of 
steamers, as they passed yesterday into Cadiz bay, and to-morrow will 
give them a sight of St. Vincent. 

One of their steam-vessels has been lost off the coast of Africa ; 
they were obliged to burn her, lest the Moors should take possession 
of her. She was a virgin vessel, just out of Brest. Poor innocent ! 
to die in the very first month of her union with the noble whiskered 
god of war ! 

We Britons on board the English boat received the news of the 
" Groenenland's " abrupt demise with grins of satisfaction. It was a 
sort of national compliment, and cause of agreeable congratulation. 
"The lubbers!" we said; "the clumsy humbugs ! there's none but 
Britons to rule the waves !" and we gave ourselves piratical airs, and 
went down presently and were sick in our little buggy berths. It was 
pleasant, certainly, to laugh at Joinville's admiral's flag floating at his 
foremast, in yonder black ship, with its two thundering great guns at 
the bows and stern, its busy crew swarming on the deck, and a crowd 
of obsequious shore-boats bustling round the vessel — and to sneer at 
the Mogador warrior, and vow that we English, had we been inclined 
to do the business, would have performed it a great deal better. 

Now yesterday at Lisbon we saw H.M.S. "Caledonia." This, 
on the contrary, inspired us with feelings of respect and awful 
pleasure. There she lay — the huge sea-castle — bearing the uncon- 
querable flag of our country. She had but to open her jaws, as it 
were, and she might bring a second earthquake on the city — batter it 
into kingdom-come — with the Ajuda palace and the Necessidades, 
the churches, and the lean, dry, empty streets, and Don John, 
tremendous on horseback, in the midst of Black Horse Square. 



368 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

Wherever we looked we could see that enormous " Caledonia," with 
her flashing three lines of guns. We looked at the little boats which 
ever and anon came out of this monster, with humble wonder. There 
was the lieutenant who boarded us at midnight before we dropped 
anchor in the river : ten white-jacketed men pulling as one, swept 
along with the barge, gig, boat, curricle, or coach-and-six, with which 
he came up to us. We examined him — his red whiskers — his collars 
turned down — his duck trousers, his bullion epaulets — with awe. 
With the same reverential feeling we examined the seamen — the 
young gentleman in the bows of the boat— the handsome young 
officers of marines we met sauntering in the town next day — the 
Scotch surgeon who boarded us as we weighed anchor — every man, 
down to the broken-nosed mariner who was drunk in a wine-house, 
and had " Caledonia" written on his hat. Whereas at the Frenchmen 
we looked with undisguised contempt. We were ready to burst with 
laughter as we passed the Prince's vessel — there was a little French 
boy in a French boat alongside cleaning it, and twirling about a little 
French mop — we thought it the most comical, contemptible French 
boy, mop, boat, steamer, prince — Psha ! it is of this wretched 
vapouring stuff that false patriotism is made. I write this as a 
sort of homily apropos of the day, and Cape Trafalgar, off which 
we lie. What business have I to strut the deck, and clap my 
wings, and cry " Cock-a-doodle-doo " over it ? Some compatriots 
are at that work even now. 

We have lost one by one all our jovial company. There were the 
five Oporto wine-merchants — all hearty English gentlemen — gone to 
their wine-butts, and their red-legged partridges, and their duels at 
Oporto. It appears that these gallant Britons fight every morning 
among themselves, and give the benighted people among whom they 
live an opportunity to admire the spirit national. There is the brave, 
honest major, with his wooden leg — the kindest and simplest of Irish- 
men : he has embraced his children, and reviewed his little invalid 
garrison of fifteen men, in the fort which he commands at Belem, by 
this time, and, I have no doubt, played to every soul of them the 
twelve tunes of his musical-box. It was pleasant to see him with 
that musical-box — how pleased he wound it up after dinner — how 
happily he listened to the little clinking tunes as they galloped, ding- 
dong, after each other. A man who carries a musical-box is always 
a good-natured man. 



TRAVELLING FRIENDS. 369 

Then there was his Grace, or his Grandeur, the Archbishop of 
Beyrouth (in the parts of the infidels), his Holiness's Nuncio to the 
court of her Most Faithful Majesty, and who mingled among us like 
any simple mortal, — except that he had an extra smiling courtesy, 
which simple mortals do not always possess ; and when you passed 
him as such, and puffed your cigar in his face, took off his hat with a 
grin of such prodigious rapture, as to lead you to suppose that the 
most delicious privilege of his whole life was that permission to look 
at the tip of your nose or of your cigar. With this most reverend 
prelate was his Grace's brother and chaplain — a very greasy and good- 
natured ecclesiastic, who, from his physiognomy, I would have 
imagined to be a dignitary of the Israelitish rather than the Romish 
church— as profuse in smiling courtesy as his Lordship of Beyrouth. 
These two had a meek little secretary between them, and a tall 
French cook and valet, who, at meal times, might be seen busy about 
the cabin where their reverences lay. They were on their backs for 
the greater part of the voyage ; their yellow countenances were not 
only unshaven, but, to judge from appearances, unwashed. They 
ate in private ; and it was only of evenings, as the sun was setting 
over the western wave, and, comforted by the dinner, the cabin- 
passengers assembled on the quarter-deck, that we saw the dark faces 
of the reverend gentlemen among us for a while. They sank darkly 
into their berths when the steward's bell tolled for tea. 

At Lisbon, where we came to anchor at midnight, a special boat 
came off, whereof the crew exhibited every token of reverence for the 
ambassador of the ambassador of heaven, and carried him off from 
our company. This abrupt departure in the darkness disappointed 
some of us, who had promised ourselves the pleasure of seeing his 
Grandeur depart in state in the morning, shaved, clean, and in full 
pontificals, the tripping little secretary swinging an incense-pot before 
him, and the greasy chaplain bearing his crosier. 

Next day we had another bishop, who occupied the very same 
berth his Grace of Beyrouth had quitted — was sick in the very same 
way — so much so that this cabin of the " Lady Mary Wood " is to 
be christened " the bishop's berth " henceforth ; and a handsome 
mitre is to be painted on the basin. 

Bishop No. 2 was a very stout, soft, kind-looking old gentleman, 
in a square cap, with a handsome tassel of green and gold round his 
portly breast and back. He was dressed in black robes and tight 

24 



37o A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

purple stockings : and we carried him from Lisbon to the little 
flat coast of Faro, of which the meek old gentleman was the chief 
pastor. 

We had not been half an hour from our anchorage in the Tagus, 
when his lordship dived down into the episcopal berth. All that 
night there was a good smart breeze ; it blew fresh all the next day, 
as we went jumping over the blue bright sea ; and there was no sign 
of his lordship the bishop until we were opposite the purple hills of 
Algarve, which lay some ten miles distant, — a yellow sunny shore 
stretching flat before them, whose long sandy flats and villages we 
could see with our telescope from the steamer. 

Presently a little vessel, with a huge shining lateen sail, and 
bearing the blue and white Portuguese flag, was seen playing a sort 
of leap-frog on the jolly waves, jumping over them, and ducking 
down as merry as could be. This little boat came towards the 
steamer as quick as ever she could jump ; and Captain Cooper 
roaring out, " Stop her ! " to " Lady Mary Wood," her ladyship's 
paddles suddenly ceased twirling, and news was carried to the good 
bishop that his boat was almost alongside, and that his hour was 
come. 

It was rather an affecting sight to see the poor old fat gentleman, 
looking wistfully over the water as the boat now came up, and her 
eight seamen, with great noise, energy, and gesticulation laid her by 
the steamer. The steamer steps were let down ; his lordship's servant, 
in blue and yellow livery, (like the " Edinburgh Review,") cast 
over the episcopal luggage into the boat, along with his own bundle 
and the jack-boots with which he rides postilion on one of the 
bishop's fat mules at Faro. The blue and yellow domestic went 
down the steps into the boat. Then came the bishop's turn ; but he 
couldn't do it for a long while. He went from one passenger to 
another, sadly shaking them by the hand, often taking leave and 
seeming loth to depart, until Captain Cooper, in a stern but respectful 
tone, touched him on the shoulder, and said, I know not with what 
correctness, being ignorant of the Spanish language, " Sehor 'Bispo ! 
Sefior 'Bispo ! " on which summons the poor old man, looking ruefully 
round him once more, put his square cap under, his arm, tucked up 
his long black petticoats, so as to show his purple stockings and jolly 
fat calves, and went trembling down the steps towards the boat. The 
good old man ! I wish I had had a shake of that trembling podgy 



THE MEEK LIEUTENANT. 371 

hand somehow before he went upon his sea martyrdom. I felt a love 
for that soft-hearted old Christian. Ah ! let us hope his governante 
tucked him comfortably in bed when he got to Faro that night, and 
made him a warm gruel and put his feet in warm water. The men 
clung around him, and almost kissed him as they popped him into the 
boat, but he did not heed their caresses. Away went the boat 
scudding madly before the wind. Bang ! another lateen-sailed boat 
in the distance fired a gun in his honour ; but the wind was blowing 
away from the shore, and who knows when that meek bishop got 
home to his gruel ! 

I think these were the notables of our party. I will not mention 
the laughing, ogling lady of Cadiz, whose manners, I very much regret 
to say, were a great deal too lively for my sense of propriety ; nor 
those fair sufferers, her companions, who lay on the deck with sickly, 
smiling, female resignation : nor the heroic children, who no sooner 
ate biscuit than they were ill, and no sooner were ill than they began 
eating biscuit again : but just allude to one other martyr, the kind 
lieutenant in charge of the mails, and who bore his cross with what I 
can't but think a very touching and noble resignation. 

There's a certain sort of man whose doom in the world is disap- 
pointment, — who excels in it, — and whose luckless triumphs in his 
meek career of life, I have often thought, must be regarded by the 
kind eyes above with as much favour as the splendid successes and 
achievements of coarser and more prosperous men. As I sat with 
the lieutenant upon deck, his telescope laid over his lean legs, and he 
looking at the sunset with a pleased, withered old face, he gave me a 
little account of his history. I take it he is in nowise disinclined to 
talk about it, simple as it is : he has been seven-and-thirty years in 
the navy, being somewhat more mature in the service than Lieutenant 
Peel, Rear-Admiral Prince de Joinville, and other commanders who 
need not be mentioned. He is a very well-educated man, and reads 
prodigiously, — travels, histories, lives of eminent worthies and heores, 
in his simple way. He is not in the least angry at his want of luck in 
the profession. " Were I a boy to-morrow," he said, " I would begin 
it again ; and when I see my schoolfellows, and how they have got 
on in life, if some are better off than I am, I find many are worse, and 
have no call to be discontented." So he carries her Majesty's mails 
meekly through this world, waits upon port-admirals and captains in 



372 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

his old glazed hat, and is as proud of the pennon at the bow of his 
little boat, as if it were flying from the mainmast of a thundering 
man-of-war. He gets two hundred a year for his services, and has an 
old mother and a sister living in England somewhere, who I will 
wager (though he never, I swear, said a word about it) have a good 
portion of this princely income. 

Is it breaking a confidence to tell Lieutenant Bundy's history ? 
Let the motive excuse the deed. It is a good, kind, wholesome, and 
noble character. Why should we keep all our admiration for those 
who win in this world, as we do, sycophants as we are ? When we 
write a novel, our great, stupid imaginations can go no further than 
to marry the hero to a fortune at the end, and to find out that he 
is a lord by right. O blundering, lickspittle morality ! And 
yet I would like to fancy some happy retributive Utopia in the 
peaceful cloudland, where my friend the meek lieutenant should 
find the yards of his ship manned as he went on board, all the guns 
firing an enormous salute (only without the least noise or vile smell 
of powder), and he be saluted on the deck as Admiral Sir James, or 
Sir Joseph — ay, or Lord Viscount Bundy, knight of all the orders 
above the sun. 

I think this is a sufficient, if not a complete catalogue of the 
worthies on board the " Lady Mary Wood." In the week we were 
on board — it seemed a year, by the way — we came to regard the ship 
quite as a home. We felt for the captain — the most good-humoured, 
active, careful, ready of captains — a filial, a fraternal regard ; for the 
providor, who provided for us with admirable comfort and gene- 
rosity, a genial gratitude ; and for the brisk steward's lads — brisk in 
serving the banquet, sympathizing in handing the basin — every pos- 
sible sentiment of regard and good-will. What winds blew, and how 
many knots we ran, are all noted down, no doubt, in the ship's 
log : and as for what ships we saw — every one of them with their 
gunnage, tonnage, their nation, their direction whither they were 
bound — were not these all noted down with surprising ingenuity and 
precision by the lieutenant, at a family desk at which he sat 
every night, before a great paper elegantly and mysteriously ruled off 
with his large ruler ? I have a regard for every man on board that 
ship, from the captain down to the crew — down even to the 
cook, with tattooed arms, sweating among the saucepans in the galley, 



StiAKE HANDS. 373 

who used (with a touching affection) to send us locks of his hair in 
the soup. And so, while our feelings and recollections are warm, 
let us shake hands with this knot of good fellows, comfortably 
floating about in their little box of wood and iron, across Channel, 
Biscay Bay, and the Atlantic, from Southampton Water to Gibraltar 
Straits. 



374 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 



CHAPTER IV. 

GIBRALTAR. 

Suppose all the nations of the earth to send fitting ambassadors to 
represent them at Wapping or Portsmouth Point, with each, under its 
own national signboard and language, its appropriate house of call, 
and your imagination may figure the Main Street of Gibraltar : almost 
the only part of the town, I believe, which boasts of the name of 
street at all, the remaining houserows being modestly called lanes, 
such as Bomb Lane, Battery Lane, Fusee Lane, and so on. In 
Main Street the Jews predominate, the Moors abound ; and from the 
" Jolly Sailor," or the brave "Horse Marine," where the people of 
our nation are drinking British beer and gin, you hear choruses of 
"Garryowen" or "The Lass I left behind me;" while through the 
flaring lattices of the Spanish ventas come the clatter of castanets and 
the jingle and moan of Spanish guitars and ditties. It is a curious 
sight at evening this thronged street, with the people, in a hundred 
different costumes, bustling to and fro under the coarse flare of the 
lamps ; swarthy Moors, in white or crimson robes ; dark Spanish 
smugglers in tufted hats, with gay silk handkerchiefs round their 
heads ; fuddled seamen from men-of-war, or merchantmen ; porters, 
Gallician or Genoese ; and at every few minutes' interval, little squads 
of soldiers tramping to relieve guard at some one of the innumerable 
posts in the town. 

Some of our party went to a Spanish venta, as a more convenient 
or romantic place of residence than an English house ; others made 
choice of the club-house in Commercial Square, of which I formed 
an agreeable picture in my imagination ; rather, perhaps, resembling 
the Junior United Service Club in Charles Street, by which every 
Londoner has passed ere this with respectful pleasure, catching 
glimpses of magnificent blazing candelabras, under which sit neat 
half-pay officers, drinking half-pints of port. The club-house of 
Gibraltar is not, however, of the Charles Street sort ; it may have 
been cheerful once, and there are yet relics of splendour about it. 



CLUB-HOUSE GOSSIP. 375 

When officers wore pigtails, and in the time of Governor O'Hara, it 
may have been a handsome place ; but it is mouldy and decrepit 
now ; and though his Excellency, Mr. Bulwer, was living there, and 
made no complaints that I heard of, other less distinguished persons 
thought they had reason to grumble. Indeed, what is travelling 
made of? At least half its pleasures and incidents come out of inns ; 
and of them the tourist can speak with much more truth and vivacity 
than of historical recollections compiled out of histories, or filched 
out of handbooks. But to speak of the best inn in a place needs 
no apology ; that, at least, is useful information ; as every person 
intending to visit Gibraltar cannot have seen the flea-bitten counte- 
nances of our companions, who fled from their Spanish venta to take 
refuge at the club the morning after our arrival, they may surely be 
thankful for being directed to the best house of accommodation in 
one of the most unromantic, uncomfortable, and prosaic of towns. 

If one had a right to break the sacred confidence of the 
mahogany, I could entertain you with many queer stories of Gibraltar 
life, gathered from the lips of the gentlemen who enjoyed themselves 
round the dingy tablecloth of the club-house coiiee-room, richly 
decorated with cold gravy and spilt beer. I heard there the very 
names of the gentlemen who wrote the famous letters from the 
" Warspite " regarding the French proceedings at Mogador ; and met 
several refugee Jews from that place, who said that they were much 
more afraid of the Kabyles without the city than of the guns of the 
French squadron, of which they seemed to make rather light. 
I heard the last odds on the ensuing match between Captain Smith's 
b. g. Bolter, and Captain Brown's ch. c. Roarer : how the gun-room 
of her Majesty's ship " Purgatory " had " cobbed " a tradesman of the 
town, and of the row in consequence. I heard capital stories of the 
way in which Wilkins had escaped the guard, and Thompson had 
been locked up among the mosquitoes for being out after ten without 

the lantern. I heard how the governor was an old , but to say 

what, would be breaking a confidence ; only this may be divulged, 
that the epithet was exceedingly complimentary to Sir Robert 
Wilson. All the while these conversations were going on, a strange 
scene of noise and bustle was passing in the market-place, in front of 
the window, where Moors, Jews, Spaniards, soldiers were thronging 
in the sun; and a ragged fat fellow, mounted on a tobacco-barrel, 
with his hat cocked on his ear, was holding an auction, and roaring 



376 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

with an energy and impudence that would have done credit to 
Covent Garden. 

The Moorish castle is the only building about the Rock which 
has an air at all picturesque or romantfc ; there is a plain Roman 
Catholic cathedral, a hideous new Protestant church of the cigar- 
divan architecture, and a Court-house with a portico which is said to 
be an imitation of the Parthenon : the ancient religious houses of the 
Spanish town are gone, or turned into military residences, and 
marked so that you would never know their former pious destination. 
You walk through narrow whitewashed lanes, bearing such martial 
names as are before mentioned, and by-streets with barracks on 
either side : small Newgate-like looking buildings, at the doors of 
which you may see the sergeants' ladies conversing ; or at the open 
windows of the officers' quarters, Ensign Fipps lying on his sofa and 
smoking his cigar, or Lieutenant Simson practising the flute to while 
away the weary hours of garrison dulness. I was surprised not to find 
more persons in the garrison library, where is a magnificent reading- 
room, and an admirable collection of books. 

In spite of the scanty herbage and the dust on the trees, the 
Alameda is a beautiful walk ; of which the vegetation has been as 
laboriously cared for as the tremendous fortifications which flank it 
on either side. The vast Rock rises on one side with its interminable 
works of defence, and Gibraltar Bay is shining on the other, out on 
which from the terraces immense cannon are perpetually looking, 
surrounded by plantations of cannon-balls and beds of bomb-shells, 
sufficient, one would think, to blow away the whole Peninsula. The 
horticultural and military mixture is indeed very queer : here and 
there temples, rustic summer-seats, &c. have been erected in the 
garden, but you are sure to see a great squat mortar look up from 
among the flower-pots : and amidst the aloes and geraniums sprouts 
the green petticoat and scarlet coat of a Highlander. Fatigue-parties 
are seen winding up the hill, and busy about the endless cannon-ball 
plantations ; awkward squads are drilling in the open spaces : sentries 
marching everywhere, and (this is a caution to artists) I am told have 
orders to run any man through who is discovered making a sketch of 
the place. It is always beautiful, especially at evening, when the 
people are sauntering along the walks, and the moon is shining on 
the waters of the bay and the hills and twinkling white houses of the 
opposite shore. Then the place becomes quite romantic : it is too 



"ALUS WELL." 377 

dark to see the dust on the dried leaves ; the cannon-balls do not 
intrude too much, but have subsided into the shade ; the awkward 
squads are in bed ; even the loungers are gone, the fan-flirting 
Spanish ladies, the sallow black-eyed children, and the trim white- 
jacketed dandies. A fife is heard from some craft at roost on the 
quiet waters somewhere ; or a faint cheer from yonder black steamer 
at the Mole, which is about to set out on some night expedition. You 
forget that the town is at all like Wapping, and deliver yourself up 
entirely to romance ; the sentries look noble pacing there, silent in 
the moonlight, and Sandy's voice is quite musical as he challenges 
with a " Who goes there ? " 

"All's Well" is very pleasant when sung decently in tune, and 
inspires noble and poetic ideas of duty, courage, and danger : but 
when you hear it shouted- all the night through, accompanied by a 
clapping of muskets in a time of profound peace, the sentinel's cry 
becomes no more romantic to the hearer than it is to the sandy 
Connaught-man or the barelegged Highlander who delivers it. It is 
best to read about wars comfortably in Harry Lorrequer or Scott's 
novels, in which knights shout their war-cries, and jovial Irish 
bayoneteers hurrah, without depriving you of any blessed rest. Men 
of a different way of thinking, however, can suit themselves perfectly 
at Gibraltar; where there is marching and counter-marching, chal- 
lenging and relieving guard all the night through. And not here in 
Commercial Square alone, but all over the huge Rock in the dark- 
ness — all through the mysterious zig-zags, and round the dark cannon- 
ball pyramids, and along the vast rock-galleries, and up to the 
topmost flagstaff, where the sentry can look out over two seas, poor 
fellows are marching and clapping muskets, and crying " All's well," 
dressed in cap and feather, in place of honest nightcaps best befitting 
the decent hours of sleep. 

All these martial noises three of us heard to the utmost advantage, 
lying on iron bedsteads at the time in a cracked old room on the 
ground-floor, the open windows of which looked into the square. 
No spot could be more favourably selected for watching the humours 
of a garrison-town by night. About midnight, the door hard by us 
was visited by a party of young officers, who having had quite as 
much drink as was good for them, were naturally inclined for more ; 
and when we remonstrated through the windows, one of them in a 
young tipsy voice asked after our mothers, and finally reeled away. 



378 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

How charming is the conversation of high-spirited youth ! I don't 
know whether the guard got hold of them : but certainly if a civilian 
had been hiccuping through the streets at that hour he would have 
been carried off to the guard-house, and left to the mercy of the mos- 
quitoes there, and had up before the Governor in the morning. The 
young man in the coffee-room tells me he goes to sleep every night 
with the keys of Gibraltar under his pillow. It is an awful image, 
and somehow completes the notion of the slumbering fortress. Fancy 
Sir Robert Wilson, his nose just visible over the sheets, his night- 
cap and the huge key (you see the very identical one in Reynolds' 
portrait of Lord Heathfield) peeping out from under the bolster! 

If I entertain you with accounts of inns and nightcaps it is 
because I am more familiar with these subjects than with history and 
fortifications : as far as I can understand the former, Gibraltar is the 
great British depot for smuggling goods into the Peninsula. You see 
vessels lying in the harbour, and are told in so many words they are 
smugglers ; all those smart Spaniards with cigar and mantles are 
smugglers, and run tobaccos and cotton into Catalonia ; all the 
respected merchants of the place are smugglers. The other day a 
Spanish revenue vessel was shot to death under the thundering great 
guns of the fort, for neglecting to bring to, but it so happened that it 
was in chase of a smuggler ; in this little corner of her dominions 
Britain proclaims war to custom-houses, and protection to free trade. 
Perhaps ere a very long day, England may be acting that part 
towards the world, which Gibraltar performs towards Spain now; and 
the last war in which we shall ever engage may be a custom-house 
war. For once establish railroads and abolish preventive duties 
through Europe, and what is there left to fight for ? It will matter 
very little then under what flag people live, and foreign ministers 
and ambassadors may enjoy a dignified sinecure ; the army will rise 
to the rank of peaceful constables, not having any more use for their 
bayonets than those worthy people have for their weapons now who 
accompany the law at assizes under the name of javeliivmen. The 
apparatus of bombs and eighty-four-pounders may disappear from 
the Alameda, and the crops of cannon-balls which now grow there 
may give place to other plants more pleasant to the eye; and the 
great key of Gibraltar may be left in the gate for anybody to turn at 
will, and Sir Robert Wilson may sleep at quiet. 



A RELEASE. 379 

I am afraid I thought it was rather a release, when, having made 
up our minds to examine the Rock in detail and view the magnificent 
excavations and galleries, the admiration of all military men, and the 
terror of any enemies who may attack the fortress, we received orders 
to embark forthwith in the " Tagus," which was to carry us to Malta 
and Constantinople. So we took leave of this famous Rock — this 
great blunderbuss — which we seized out of the hands of the natural 
owners a hundred and forty years ago, and which we have kept ever 
since tremendously loaded and cleaned and ready for use. To seize 
and have it is doubtless a gallant thing ; it is like one of those tests of 
courage which one reads of in the chivalrous romances, when, for 
instance, Sir Huon of Bordeaux is called upon to prove his knight- 
hood by going to Babylon and pulling out the Sultan's beard and 
front teeth in the midst of his court there. But, after all, justice 
must confess it was rather hard on the poor Sultan. If we had 
the Spaniards established at Land's End, with impregnable Spanish 
fortifications on St. Michael's Mount, we should perhaps come 
to the same conclusion. Meanwhile let us hope, during this 
long period of deprivation, the Sultan of Spain is reconciled to 
the loss of his front teeth and bristling whiskers — let us even try to 
think that he is better without them. At all events, right or wrong, 
whatever may be our title to the property, there is no Englishman but 
must think with pride of the manner in which his countrymen have 
kept it, and of the courage, endurance, and sense of duty with which 
stout old Eliot and his companions resisted Crillion and the Spanish 
battering ships and his fifty thousand men. There seems to be some- 
thing more noble in the success of a gallant resistance than of an 
attack, however brave. After failing in his attack on the fort, the 
French General visited the English Commander who had foiled him, 
and parted from him and his garrison in perfect politeness and good 
humour. The English troops, Drinkwater says, gave him thundering 
cheers as he went away, and the French in return complimented us 
on our gallantry, and lauded the humanity of our people. If we are 
to go on murdering each other in the old-fashioned way, what a pity 
it is that our battles cannot end in the old-fashioned way too. 

One of our fellow-travellers, who had written a book, and had 
suffered considerably from sea-sickness during our passage along the 
coasts of France and Spain, consoled us all by saying that the very 
minute we got into the Mediterranean we might consider ourselves 



380 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

entirely free from illness ; and, in fact, that it was unheard of in the 
Inland Sea. Even in the Bay of Gibraltar the water looked bluer 
than anything I have ever seen — except Miss Smith's eyes. I thought, 
somehow, the delicious faultless azure never could look angry — just 
like the eyes before alluded to — and under this assurance we passed 
the Strait, and began coasting the African shore calmly and without 
the least apprehension, as if we were as much used to the tempest as 
Mr. T. P. Cooke. 

But when, in spite of the promise of the man who had written the 
book, we found ourselves worse than in the worst part of the Bay of 
Biscay, or off the storm-lashed rocks of Finisterre, we set down the 
author in question as a gross impostor, and had a mind to quarrel 
with him for leading us into this cruel error. The most provoking 
part of the matter, too, was, that the sky was deliriously clear and 
cloudless, the air balmy, the sea so insultingly blue that it seemed as 
if we had no right to be ill at all, and that the innumerable little 
waves that frisked round about our keel were enjoying an anerithmon 
gelasma (this is one of my four Greek quotations : depend on it I will 
manage to introduce the other three before the tour is done) — 
seemed to be enjoying, I say, the above-named Greek quotation at 
our expense. Here is the dismal log of Wednesday, 4th of 
September : — " All attempts at dining very fruitless. Basins in 
requisition. Wind hard ahead. Que diable allais-je /aire dans cette 
galere? Writing or thinking impossible : so read letters from the 
yEgean." These brief words give, I think, a complete idea of 
wretchedness, despair, remorse, and prostration of soul and body. 
Two days previously we passed the forts and moles and yellow 
buildings of Algiers, rising very stately from the sea, and skirted by 
gloomy purple lines of African shore, with fires smoking in the moun- 
tains, and lonely settlements here and there. 

On the 5th, to the inexpressible joy of all, we reached Valetta, 
the entrance to the harbour of which is one of the most stately and 
agreeable scenes ever admired by sea-sick traveller. The small 
basin was busy with a hundred ships, from the huge guard-ship, 
which lies there a city in itself ; — merchantmen loading and crews 
cheering, under all the flags of the world flaunting in the sunshine ; a 
half-score of busy black steamers perpetually coming and going, 
coaling and painting, and puffing and hissing in and out of harbour ; 
slim men-of-war's barges shooting to and fro, with long shining oars 



VALETTA. 381 

flashing like wings over the water ; hundreds of painted town-boats, 
with high heads and white awnings, — down to the little tubs in which 
some naked, tawny young beggars came paddling up to the steamer, 
entreating us to let them dive for halfpence. Round this busy blue 
water rise rocks, blazing in sunshine, and covered with every imagin- 
able device of fortification • to the right, St. Elmo, with flag and 
lighthouse ; and opposite, the Military Hospital, looking like a 
palace ; and all round, the houses of the city, for its size the hand- 
somest and most stately in the world. 

Nor does it disappoint you on a closer inspection, as many a 
foreign town does. The streets are thronged with a lively, comfort- 
able-looking population ; the poor seem to inhabit handsome stone 
palaces, with balconies and projecting windows of heavy carved 
stone. The lights and shadows, the cries and stenches, the fruit- 
shops and fish-stalls, the dresses and chatter of all nations ; the 
soldiers in scarlet, and women in black mantillas ; the beggars, boat- 
men, barrels of pickled herrings and maccaroni ; the shovel-hatted 
priests and bearded capuchins ; the tobacco, grapes, onions, and 
sunshine; the signboards, bottled-porter stores, the statues of saints 
and little chapels which jostle the stranger's eyes as he goes up the 
famous stairs from the Water-gate, make a scene of such pleasant 
confusion and liveliness as I have never witnessed before. And the 
effects of the groups of multitudinous actors in this busy, cheerful 
drama is heightened, as it were, by the decorations of the stage. 
The sky is delightfully brilliant ; all the houses and ornaments are 
stately ; castles and palaces are rising all around ; and the flag, 
towers, and walls of Fort St. Elmo look as fresh and magnificent as if 
they had been erected only yesterday. 

The Strada Reale has a much more courtly appearance than that 
one described. Here are palaces, churches, court-houses and libraries, 
the genteel London shops, and the latest articles of perfumery. Gay 
young officers are strolling about in shell-jackets much too small for 
them : midshipmen are clattering by on hired horses ; squads of 
priests, habited after the fashion of Don Basilio in the opera, are 
demurely pacing to and fro ; professional beggars run shrieking after 
the stranger; and agents for horses, for inns, and for worse places 
still, follow him and insinuate the excellence of their goods. The 
houses where they are selling carpet-bags and pomatum were the 
palaces of the successors of the goodliest company of gallant knights 



382 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

the world ever heard tell of. It seems unromantic ; but these were 
not the romantic Knights of St. John. The heroic days of the Order 
ended as the last Turkish galley lifted anchor after the memorable 
siege. The present stately houses were built in times of peace 
and splendour and decay. I doubt whether the Auberge de 
Provence, where the " Union Club " flourishes now, has ever seen 
anything more romantic than the pleasant balls held in the great 
room there. 

The Church of Saint John, not a handsome structure without, is 
magnificent within : a noble hall covered with a rich embroidery of 
gilded carving, the chapels of the different nations on either side, but 
not interfering with the main structure, of which the whole is simple, 
and the details only splendid ; it seemed to me a fitting place for this 
wealthy body of aristocratic soldiers, who made their devotions as it 
were on parade, and, though on their knees, never forgot their 
epaulets or their quarters of nobility. This mixture of religion and 
worldly pride seems incongruous at first ; but have we not at church 
at home similar relics of feudal ceremony ? — the verger with the 
silver mace who precedes the vicar to the desk ; the two chaplains of 
my lord archbishop, who bow over his grace as he enters the com- 
munion-table gate ; even poor John, who follows my lady with a 
coroneted prayer-book, and makes his conge as he hands it into the 
pew. What a chivalrous absurdity is the banner of some high and 
mighty prince, hanging over his stall in Windsor Chapel, when you 
think of the purpose for which men are supposed to assemble there ! 
The Church of the Knights of St. John is paved over with sprawling 
heraldic devices of the dead gentlemen of the dead Order ; as if, in 
the next world, they expected to take rank in conformity with their 
pedigrees, and would be marshalled into heaven according to the 
orders of precedence. Cumbrous handsome paintings adorn the 
walls and chapels, decorated with pompous monuments of Grand 
Masters. Beneath is a crypt, where more of these honourable and 
reverend warriors lie, in a state that a Simpson would admire. In 
the altar are said to lie three of the most gallant relics in the world : 
the keys of Acre, Rhodes, and Jerusalem. What blood was shed in 
defending these emblems ! What faith, endurance, genius, and gene- 
rosity ; what pride, hatred, ambition, and savage lust of blood were 
roused together for their guardianship ! 

In the lofty halls and corridors of the Governor's house, some 



MALTA RELICS. 383 

portraits of the late Grand Masters still remain : a very fine one, by 
Caravaggio, of a knight in gilt armour, hangs in the dining-room, 
near a full-length of poor Louis XVI., in royal robes, the very picture 
of uneasy impotency. But the portrait of De Vignacourt is the only 
one which has a respectable air ; the other chiefs of the famous society 
are pompous old gentlemen in black, with huge periwigs, and crowns 
round their hats, and a couple of melancholy pages in yellow and red. 
But pages and wigs and Grand Masters have almost faded out of the 
canvas, and are vanishing into Hades with a most melancholy indis- 
tinctness. The names of most of these gentlemen, however, live as 
yet in the forts of the place, which all seem to have been eager to 
build and christen : so that it seems as if, in the Malta mythology, 
they had been turned into freestone. 

In the armoury is the very suit painted by Caravaggio, by the side 
of the armour of the noble old La Valette, whose heroism saved his 
island from the efforts of Mustapha and Dragut, and an army quite as 
fierce and numerous as that which was baffled before Gibraltar, by 
similar courage and resolution. The sword of the last-named famous 
corsair (a most truculent little scimitar), thousands of pikes and 
halberts, little old cannons and wall-pieces, helmets and cuirasses, 
which the knights or their people wore, are trimly arranged against 
the wall, and, instead of spiking Turks or arming warriors, now serve 
to point morals and adorn tales. And here likewise are kept many 
thousand muskets, swords, and boarding-pikes for daily use, and a 
couple of ragged old standards of one of the English regiments, who 
pursued and conquered in Egypt the remains of the haughty and 
famous French republican army, at whose appearance the last knights 
of Malta flung open the gates of all their fortresses, and consented 
to be extinguished without so much as a remonstrance, or a kick, or 
a struggle. 

We took a drive into what may be called the country ; where the 
fields are rocks, and the hedges are stones — passing by the stone 
gardens of the Florian, and wondering at the number and handsome- 
ness of the stone villages and churches rising everywhere among the 
stony hills. Handsome villas were passed everywhere, and we drove 
for a long distance along the sides of an aqueduct, quite a royal work 
of the Caravaggio in gold armour, the Grand Master De Vignacourt. 
A most agreeable contrast to -the arid rocks of the general scenery 
was the garden at the Governor's country-house ; with the orange- 



384 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

trees and water, its beautiful golden grapes, luxuriant flowers, and 
thick cool shrubberies. The eye longs for this sort of refreshment, 
after being seared with the hot glare of the general country ; and 
St. Antonio was as pleasant after Malta as Malta was after the sea. 

We paid the island a subsequent visit in November, passing 
seventeen days at an establishment called Fort Manuel there, and by 
punsters the Manuel des Voyageurs; where Government accommo- 
dates you with quarters ; where the authorities are so attentive as to 
scent your letters with aromatic vinegar before you receive them, and 
so careful of your health as to lock you up in your room every night 
lest you should walk in your sleep, and so over the battlements into 
the sea : if you escaped drowning in the sea, the sentries on the 
opposite shore would fire at you, hence the nature of the precaution. 
To drop, however, this satirical strain : those who know what quaran- 
tine is, may fancy that the place somehow becomes unbearable in 
which it has been endured. And though the November climate of 
Malta is like the most delicious May in England, and though there is 
every gaiety and amusement in the town, a comfortable little opera, a 
good old library filled full of good old books (none of your works of 
modern science, travel, and history, but good old useless books of the 
last two centuries), and nobody to trouble you in reading them, and 
though the society of Valetta is most hospitable, varied, and agree- 
able, yet somehow one did not feel safe in the island, with perpetual 
glimpses of Fort Manuel from the opposite shore ; and, lest the 
quarantine authorities should have a fancy to fetch one back again, on 
a pretext of posthumous plague, we made our way to Naples by the 
very first opportunity — those who remained, that is, of the little 
Eastern expedition. They were not all there. The Giver of life and 
death had removed two of our company : one was left behind to die 
in Egypt, with a mother to bewail his loss ; another we buried in the 
dismal lazaretto cemetery. 

***** 

One is bound to look at this, too, as a part of our journey. 
Disease and death are knocking perhaps at your next cabin door. 
Your kind and cheery companion has ridden his last ride and 
emptied his last glass beside you. And while fond hearts are 
yearning for him far away, and his own mind, if conscious, is turning 
eagerly towards the spot of the world whither affection or interest 
calls it — the Great Father summons the anxious spirit from earth to 



DEATH IN THE LAZARETTO. 385 

himself, and ordains that the nearest and dearest shall meet here no 
more. 

Such an occurrence as a death in a lazaretto, mere selfishness 
renders striking. We were walking with him but two days ago on 
deck. One has a sketch of him, another his card, with the address 
written yesterday, and given with an invitation to come and see him 
at home in the country, where his children are looking for him. He 
is dead in a day, and buried in the walls of the prison. A doctor 
felt his pulse by deputy — a clergyman comes from the town to read 
the last service over him — and the friends, who attend his funeral, 
are marshalled by lazaretto-guardians, so as not to touch each other. 
Every man goes back to his room and applies the lesson to himself. 
One would not so depart without seeing again the dear, dear faces. 
We reckon up those we love : they are but very few, but I think one 
loves them better than ever now. Should it be your turn next ? — 
and why not ? Is it pity or comfort to think of that affection which 
watches and survives you ? 

The Maker has linked together the whole race of man with 
this chain of love. I like to think that there is no man but has had 
kindly feelings for some other, and he for his neighbour, until we 
bind together the whole family of Adam. Nor does it end here. It 
joins heaven and earth together. For my friend or my child of past 
days is still my friend or my child to me here, or in the home 
prepared for us by the Father of all. If identity survives the grave, 
as our faith tells us, is it not a consolation to think that there may be 
one or two souls among the purified and just, whose affection watches 
us invisible, and follows the poor sinner on earth ? 



*3 



386 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 



CHAPTER V. 

ATHENS. 

Not feeling any enthusiasm myself about Athens, my bounden duty 
of course is clear, to sneer and laugh heartily at all who have. In 
fact, what business has a lawyer, who was in Pump Court this day 
three weeks, and whose common reading is law reports or the news- 
paper, to pretend to fall in love for the long vacation with mere 
poetry, of which I swear a great deal is very doubtful, and to get up 
an enthusiasm quite foreign to his nature and usual calling in life ? 
What call have ladies to consider Greece "romantic," they who get 
their notions of mythology from the well-known pages of " Tooke's 
Pantheon ? " What is the reason that blundering Yorkshire squires, 
young dandies from Corfu regiments, jolly sailors from ships in the 
harbour, and yellow old Indians returning from Bundelcund, should 
think proper to be enthusiastic about a country of which they know 
nothing ; the mere physical beauty of which they cannot, for the most 
part, comprehend ; and because certain characters lived in it two 
thousand four hundred years ago ? What have these people in 
common with Pericles, what have these ladies in common with 
Aspasia (O fie) ? Of the race of Englishmen who come wondering 
about the tomb of Socrates, do you think the majority would not have 
voted to hemlock him ? Yes : for the very same superstition which 
leads men by the nose now, drove them onward in the days when the 
lowly husband of Xantippe died for daring to think simply and to 
speak the truth. I know of no quality more magnificent in fools 
than their faith : that perfect consciousness they have, that they are 
doing virtuous and meritorious actions, when they are performing acts 
of folly, murdering Socrates, or pelting Aristides with holy oyster- 
shells, all for Virtue's sake ; and a " History of Dulness in all Ages of 
the World," is a book which a philosopher would surely be hanged, 
but as certainly blessed, for writing. 

If papa and mamma (honour be to them !) had not followed the 
faith of their fathers, and thought proper to send away their only beloved 



REMINISCENCES OF TYIITQ. 3^7 

son (afterwards to be celebrated under the name of Titmarsh) into 
ten years' banishment of infernal misery, tyranny, annoyance ; to give 
over the fresh feelings of the heart of the little Michael Angelo to the 
discipline of vulgar bullies, who, in order to lead tender young 
children to the Temple of Learning (as they do in the spelling- 
books), drive them on with clenched fists and low abuse ; if they 
fainted, revived them with a thump, or assailed them with a curse ; 
if they were miserable, consoled them with a brutal jeer — if, I say, my 
dear parents, instead of giving me the inestimable benefit of a ten 
years' classical education, had kept me at home with my dear thirteen 
sisters, it is probable I should have liked this country of Attica, in 
sight of the blue shores of which the present pathetic letter is 
written ; but I was made so miserable in youth by a classical 
education, that all connected with it is disagreeable in my eyes ; and 
I have the same recollection of Greek in youth that I have of 
castor-oil. 

So in coming in sight of the promontory of Sunium, where the 
Greek muse, in an awful vision, came to me, and said in a patronizing 
way, "Why, my dear," (she always, the old spinster, adopts this 
high and mighty tone,) — "Why, my dear, are you not charmed to be 
in this famous neighbourhood, in this land of poets and heroes, of 
whose history your classical education ought to have made you a 
master ; if it did not, you have wofully neglected your opportunities, 
and your dear parents have wasted their money in sending you to 
school." I replied, " Madam, your company in youth was made so 
laboriously disagreeable to me, that I can't at present reconcile myself 
to you in age. I read your poets, but it was in fear and trembling ; 
and a cold sweat is but an ill accompaniment to poetry. I blundered 
through your histories ; but history is so dull (saving your presence) 
of herself, that when the brutal dulness of a schoolmaster is super- 
added to her own slow conversation, the union becomes intolerable : 
hence I have not the slightest pleasure in renewing my acquaint- 
ance with a lady who has been the source of so much bodily 
and mental discomfort to me." To make a long story short, I 
am anxious to apologize for a want of enthusiasm in the classical 
line, and to excuse an ignorance which is of the most undeniable 
sort. 

This is an improper frame of mind for a person visiting the land 
of ^Eschylus and Euripides ; add to which, we have been abominably 



333 



A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 



overcharged at the inn : and what are the blue hills of Attica, the 
silver calm basin of Piraeus, the heathery heights of Pentelicus, and 
yonder rocks crowned by the Doric columns of the Parthenon, and 
the thin Ionic shafts of the Erechtheum, to a man who has had 
little rest, and is bitten all over by bugs ? Was Alcibiades bitten 
by bugs, I wonder; and did the brutes crawl over him as he 
lay in the rosy arms of Phryne ? I wished all night for Socrates' 
hammock or basket, as it is described in the " Clouds ; " in which 
resting-place, no doubt, the abominable animals kept perforce clear 
of him. 

A French man-of-war, lying in the silvery little harbour, sternly 
eyeing out of its stern port-holes a saucy little English corvette 
beside, began playing sounding marches as a crowd of boats came 
paddling up to the steamer's side to convey us travellers to shore. 
There were Russian schooners and Greek brigs lying in this little 
bay ; dumpy little windmills whirling round on the sunburnt heights 
round about it ; an improvised town of quays and marine taverns has 
sprung up on the shore ; a host of jingling barouches, more miserable 
than any to be seen even in Germany, were collected at the landing- 
place ; and the Greek drivers (how queer they looked in skull-caps, 







shabby jackets with profuse embroidery of worsted, and endless 
petticoats of dirty calico !) began, in a generous ardour for securing 
passengers, to abuse each other's horses and carriages in the regular 
London fashion. Satire could certainly hardly caricature the vehicle 
in which we were made to journey to Athens; and it was only by 
thinking that, bad as they were, these coaches were much more com- 
fortable contrivances than any Alcibiades or Cimon ever had, that we 
consoled ourselves along the road. It was flat for six miles along the 



LANDSCAPE. 389 

plain to the city : and you see for the greater part of the way the 
purple mount on which the Acropolis rises, and the gleaming houses 
of the town spread beneath. Round this wide, yellow, barren plain, 
— a stunt district of olive-trees is almost the only vegetation visible — 
there rises, as it were, a sort of chorus of the most beautiful moun- 
tains ; the most elegant, gracious, and noble the eye ever looked on. 
These hills did not appear at all lofty or terrible, but superbly 
rich and aristocratic. The clouds were dancing round about them ; 
you could see their rosy, purple shadows sweeping round the clear, 
serene summits of the hill. To call a hill aristocratic seems affected 
or absurd ; but the difference between these hills and the others, is 
the difference between Newgate Prison and the " Travellers' Club," 
for instance : both are buildings ; but the one stern, dark, and 
coarse : the other rich, elegant, and festive. At least, so I thought. 
With such a stately palace as munificent Nature had built for these 
people, what could they be themselves but lordly, beautiful, brilliant, 
brave, and wise? We saw four Greeks on donkeys on the road 
(which is a dust-whirlwind where it is not a puddle) ; and other four 
were playing with a dirty pack of cards, at a barrack that English 
poets have christened the " Half-way House." Does external nature 
and beauty influence the soul to good? You go about Warwick- 
shire, and fancy that from merely being born and wandering in those 
sweet sunny plains and fresh woodlands Shakspeare must have drunk 
in a portion of that frank, artless sense of beauty, which lies about 
his works like a bloom or dew ; but a Coventry ribbon-maker, or a 
slang Leamington squire, are looking on those very same landscapes 
too, and what do they profit ? You theorize about the influence which 
the climate and appearance of Attica must have had in ennobling 
those who were born there; yonder dirty, swindling, ragged black- 
guards, lolling over greasy cards three hours before noon, quarrelling 
and shrieking, armed to the teeth and afraid to fight, are bred out of 
the same land which begot the philosophers and heroes. But the 
" Half-way House " is past by this time, and behold ! we are in the 
capital of King Otho. 

I swear solemnly that I would rather have two hundred a year in 
Fleet Street, than be King of the Greeks, with Basileus written before 
my name round their beggarly coin ; with the bother of perpetual 
revolutions in my huge plaster-of-Paris palace, with no amusement 
but a drive in the afternoon over a wretched arid country, where 



39Q A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

roads are not made, with ambassadors (the deuce knows why, for 
what good can the English, or the French, or the Russian party get 
out of such a bankrupt alliance as this ?) perpetually pulling and 
tugging at me, away from honest Germany, where there is beer and 
aesthetic conversation, and operas at a small cost. The shabbiness 
of this place actually beats Ireland, and that is a strong word. The 
palace of the Basileus is an enormous edifice of plaster, in a square 
containing six houses, three donkeys, no roads, no fountains (except 
in the picture of the inn) ; backwards it seems to look straight to the 
mountain — on one side is a beggarly garden — the King goes out to 
drive (revolutions permitting) at five — some four-and-twenty black- 
guards saunter up to the huge sandhill of a terrace, as his Majesty 
passes by in a gilt barouche and an absurd fancy dress ; the gilt 
barouche goes plunging down the sandhills : the two dozen soldiers, 
who have been presenting arms, slouch off to their quarters : the vast 
barrack of a palace remains entirely white, ghastly, and lonely : and, 
save the braying of a donkey now and then, (which long-eared 
minstrels are more active and sonorous in Athens than in any place I 
know,) all is entirely silent round Basileus's palace. How could 
people who knew Leopold fancy he would be so "jolly green" as to 
take such a berth ? It was only a gobemouche of a Bavarian that 
could ever have been induced to accept it. 

I beseech you to believe that it was not the bill and the bugs at 
the inn which induced the writer hereof to speak so slightingly 
of the residence of Basileus. These evils are now cured and for- 
gotten. This is written off the leaden flats and mounds which 
they call the Troad. It is stern justice alone which pronounces 
this excruciating sentence. It was a farce to make this place into 
a kingly capital ; and I make no manner of doubt that King Otho, 
the very day he can get away unperceived, and get together the 
passage-money, will be off for dear old Deutschland, Fatherland, 
Beerland ! 

I have never seen a town in England which may be compared 
to this ; for though Heme Bay is a ruin now, money was once spent 
upon it and houses built; here, beyond a few score of mansions 
comfortably laid out, the town is little better than a rickety agglome- 
ration of larger and smaller huts, tricked out here and there with the 
most absurd cracked ornaments and cheap attempts at elegance. 
But neatness is the elegance of poverty, and these people despise 



GREEK WOMEN. 39* 

such a homely ornament. I have got a map with squares, fountains, 
theatres, public gardens, and Places d'Othon marked out ; but they 
only exist in the paper capital — the wretched tumble-down wooden 
one boasts of none. 

One is obliged to come back to the old disagreeable comparison 
of Ireland. Athens may be about as wealthy a place as Carlow or 
Killarney — the streets swarm with idle crowds, the innumerable 
little lanes flow over with dirty little children, they are playing 
and puddling about in the dirt everywhere, with great big eyes, 
yellow faces, and the queerest little gowns and skull-caps. But 
in the outer man, the Greek has far the advantage of the Irish- 
man : most of them are well and decently dressed (if five-and-twenty 
yards of petticoat may not be called decent, what may?) they 
swagger to and fro with huge knives in their girdles. Almost all the 
men are handsome, but live hard, it is said, in order to decorate their 
backs with those fine clothes of theirs. I have seen but two or three 
handsome women, and these had the great drawback which is 
common to the race — I mean, a sallow, greasy, coarse complexion, 
at which it was not advisable to look too closely. 

And on this score I think we English may pride ourselves on 
possessing an advantage (by we, I mean the lovely ladies to whom 
this is addressed with the most respectful compliments) over the most 
classical country in the world. I don't care for beauty which will 
only bear to be looked at from a distance, like a scene in a theatre. 
What is the most beautiful nose in the world, if it be covered with a 
skin of the texture and colour of coarse whitey-brown paper ; and if 
Nature has made it as slippery and shining as though it had been 
anointed with pomatum ? They may talk about beauty, but would 
you wear a flower that had been dipped in a grease-pot ? No ; give 
me a fresh, dewy, healthy rose out of Somersetshire ; not one of those 
superb, tawdry, unwholesome exotics, which are only good to make 
poems about. Lord Byron wrote more cant of this sort than any 
poet I know of. Think of " the peasant girls with dark blue eyes " 
of the Rhine — the brown-faced, flat-nosed, thick-lipped, dirty wenches ! 
Think of "filling high a cup of Samian wine;" small beer is nectar 
compared to it, and Byron himself always drank gin. That man 
never wrote from his heart. He got up rapture and enthusiasm with 
an eye to the public ; but this is dangerous ground, even more 
dangerous than to look Athens full in the face, and say that your 



392 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

eyes are not dazzled by its beauty. The Great Public admires 
Greece and Byron ; the public knows best. Murray's " Guide-book " 
calls the latter " our native bard." Our native bard ! Mon Dieu ! 
He Shakspeare's, Milton's, Keats's, Scott's native bard ! Well, woe 
be to the man who denies the public gods ! 

The truth is, then, that Athens is a disappointment ; and I am 
angry that it should be so. To a skilled antiquarian, or an enthu- 
siastic Greek scholar, the feelings created by a sight of the place of 
course will be different ; but you who would be inspired by it must 
undergo a long preparation of reading, and possess, too, a particular 
feeling ; both of which, I suspect, are uncommon in our busy com- 
mercial newspaper-reading country. Men only say they are enthu- 
siastic about the Greek and Roman authors and history, because it is 
considered proper and respectable. And we know how gentlemen in 
Baker Street have editions of the classics handsomely bound in the 
library, and how they use them. Of course they don't retire to read 
the newspaper ; it is to look over a favourite ode of Pindar, or to 
discuss an obscure passage in Athenaeus ! Of course country magis- 
trates and Members of Parliament are always studying Demosthenes 
and Cicero ; we know it from their continual habit of quoting the 
Latin grammar in Parliament. But it is agreed that the classics 
are respectable ; therefore we are to be enthusiastic about them. 
Also let us admit that Byron is to be held up as "our native 
bard." 

I am not so entire a heathen as to be insensible to the beauty 
of those relics of Greek art, of which men much more learned and 
enthusiastic have written such piles of descriptions. I thought I 
could recognize the towering beauty of the prodigious columns of 
the Temple of Jupiter ; and admire the astonishing grace, severity, 
elegance,, completeness of the Parthenon. The little Temple of 
Victory, with its fluted Corinthian shafts, blazed under the sun almost 
as fresh as it must have appeared to the eyes of its founders ; I saw 
nothing more charming and brilliant, more graceful, festive, and 
aristocratic than this sumptuous little building. The Roman remains 
which lie in the town below look like the works of barbarians 
beside these perfect structures. They jar strangely on the eye, after 
it has been accustoming itself to perfect harmony and proportions. 
If, as the schoolmaster tells us, the Greek writing is as complete as 
the Greek art ; if an ode of Pindar is as glittering and pure as the 



TYIITQ AGAIN. 393 

Temple of Victory ; or a discourse of Plato as polished and calm as 
yonder mystical portico of the Erechtheum ; what treasures of the 
senses and delights of the imagination have those lost to whom the 
Greek books are as good as sealed ! 

And yet one meets with very dull first-class men. Genius won't 
transplant from one brain to another, or is ruined in the carriage, like 
fine Burgundy. Sir Robert Peel and Sir John Hobhouse are both 
good scholars ; but their poetry in Parliament does not strike one as 
fine. Muzzle, the schoolmaster, who is bullying poor trembling little 
boys, was a fine scholar when he was a sizar, and a ruffian then 
and ever since. Where is the great poet, since the days of Milton, 
who has improved the natural offshoots of his brain by grafting 
it from the Athenian tree ? 

I had a volume of Tennyson in my pocket, which somehow 
settled that question, and ended the querulous dispute between me 
and Conscience, under the shape of the neglected and irritated 
Greek muse, which had been going on ever since I had commenced 
my walk about Athens. The old spinster saw me wince at the idea 
of the author of Dora and Ulysses, and tried to follow up her advan- 
tage by further hints of time lost, and precious opportunities thrown 
away. " You might have written poems like them," said she ; " or, 
no, not like them perhaps, but you might have done a neat prize 
poem, and pleased your papa and mamma. You might have 
translated Jack and Gill into Greek iambics, and been a credit to your 
college." I turned testily away from her. " Madam," says I, "because 
an eagle houses on a mountain, or soars to the sun, don't you be 
angry with a sparrow that perches on a garret-window, or twitters on 
a twig. Leave me to myself; look, my beak is not aquiline by 
any means." 

And so, my dear friend, you who have been reading this last page 
in wonder, and who, instead of a description of Athens, have been 
accommodated with a lament on the part of the writer, that he was 
idle at school, and does not know Greek, excuse this momentary 
outbreak of egotistic despondency. To say truth, dear Jones, when 
one walks among the nests of the eagles, and sees the prodigious eggs 
they laid, a certain feeling of discomfiture must come over us smaller 
birds. You and I could not invent — it even stretches our minds pain- 
fully to try and comprehend part of the beauty of the Parthenon — 
ever so little of it, — the beauty of a single column, — a fragment of a 



394 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

broken shaft lying under the astonishing blue sky there, in the midst 
of that unrivalled landscape. There may be grander aspects of nature, 
but none more deliciously beautiful. The hills rise in perfect harmony, 
and fall in the most exquisite cadences, — the sea seems brighter, the 
islands more purple, the clouds more light and rosy than elsewhere. 
As you look up through the open roof, you are almost oppressed by 
the serene depth of the blue overhead. Look even at the fragments 
of the marble, how soft and pure it is, glittering and white like fresh 
snow ! " I was all beautiful," it seems to say : " even the hidden 
parts of me were spotless, precious, and fair " — and so, musing over 
this wonderful scene, perhaps I get some feeble glimpse or idea of 
that ancient Greek spirit which peopled it with sublime races of heroes 
and gods ; * and which I never could get out of a Greek book, — no, 
not though Muzzle flung it at my head. 

* Saint Paul speaking from the Areopagus, and rebuking these superstitions 
away, yet speaks tenderly to the people before him, whose devotions he had 
marked ; quotes their poets, to bring them to think of the God unknown, whom 
they had ignorantly worshipped ; and says, that the times of this ignorance God 
winked at, but that now it was time to repent. No rebuke can surely be more 
gentle than this delivered by the upright Apostle. 



( 395 ) 



CHAPTER VI. 

SMYRNA — FIRST GLIMPSES OF THE EAST. 

I AM glad that the Turkish part of Athens was extinct, so that I 
should not be baulked of the pleasure of entering an Eastern town by 
an introduction to any garbled or incomplete specimen of one. 
Smyrna seems to me the most Eastern of all I have seen ; as Calais 
will probably remain to the Englishman the most French town in the 
world. The jack-boots of the postilions don't seem so huge elsewhere, 
or the tight stockings of the maid-servants so Gallic. The churches 
and the ramparts, and the little soldiers on them, remain for 
ever impressed upon your memory ; from which larger temples and 
buildings, and whole armies have subsequently disappeared : and the 
first words of actual French heard spoken, and the first dinner at 
" Quillacq's," remain after twenty years as clear as on the first day. 
Dear Jones, can't you remember the exact smack of the white her- 
mitage, and the toothless old fellow singing " Largo ai factotum " ? 

The first day in the East is like that. After that there is nothing. 
The wonder is gone, and the thrill of that delightful shock, which so 
seldom touches the nerves of plain men of the world, though they 
seek for it everywhere. One such looked out at Smyrna from our 
steamer, and yawned without the least excitement, and did not betray 
the slightest emotion, as boats with real Turks on board came up to 
the ship. There lay the town with minarets and cypresses, domes 
and castles ; great guns were firing off, and the blood-red flag of the 
Sultan flaring over the fort ever since sunrise ; woods and mountains 
came down to the gulf's edge, and as you looked at them with the 
telescope, there peeped out of the general mass a score of pleasant 
episodes of Eastern life — there were cottages with quaint roofs ; 
silent cool kiosks, where the chief of the eunuchs brings down the 
ladies of the harem. I saw Hassan, the fisherman, getting his nets ; 
and Ali Baba going off with his donkey to the great forest for wood. 
Smith looked at these wonders quite unmoved ; and I was surprised 
at his apathy : but he had been at Smyrna before. A man only sees 
the miracle once ; though you yearn after it ever so, it won't come 



396 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

again. I saw nothing of Ali Baba and Hassan the next time we came 
to Smyrna, and had some doubts (recollecting the badness of the inn) 
about landing at all. A person who wishes to understand France 
and the East should come in a yacht to Calais or Smyrna, land for 
two hours, and never afterwards go back again. 

But those two hours are beyond measure delightful. Some of us 
were querulous up to that time, and doubted of the wisdom of making 
the voyage. Lisbon, we owned, was a failure ; Athens a dead 
failure ; Malta very well, but not worth the trouble and sea-sickness : 
in fact, Baden-Baden or Devonshire would be a better move 
than this ; when Smyrna came, and rebuked all mutinous Cockneys 
into silence. Some men may read this who are in want of a sensa- 
tion. If they love the odd and picturesque, if they loved the 
" Arabian Nights " in their youth, let them book themselves on board 
one of the Peninsular and Oriental vessels, and try one dip into Con- 
stantinople or Smyrna. Walk into the bazaar, and the East is 
unveiled to you ; how often and often have you tried to fancy this, 
lying out on a summer holiday at school ! It is wonderful, too, how 
like it is ; you may imagine that you have been in the place before, 
you seem to know it so well ! 

The beauty of that poetry is, to me, that it was never too hand- 
some ; there is no fatigue of sublimity about it. Shacabac and the 
little Barber play as great a part in it as the heroes ; there are no 
uncomfortable sensations of terror; you may be familiar with the 
great Afreet, who was going to execute the travellers for killing his 
son with a date-stone. Morgiana, when she kills the forty robbers 
with boiling oil, does not seem to hurt them in the least; and 
though King Schahriar makes a practice of cutting off his wives' 
heads, yet you fancy they have got them on again in some of the back 
rooms of the palace, where they are dancing and playing on dulcimers. 
How fresh, easy, good-natured, is all this ! How delightful is that 
notion of the pleasant Eastern people about knowledge, where the 
height of science is made to consist in the answering of riddles ! and 
all the mathematicians and magicians bring their great beards to bear 
on a conundrum ! 

When I got into the bazaar among this race, somehow I felt as if 
they were all friends. There sat the merchants in their little shops, 
quiet and solemn, but with friendly looks. There was no smoking, 
it was the Ramazan \ no eating, the fish and meats fizzing in the 



THE SMYRNA BAZAAR. 397 

enormous pots of the cook-shops are only for the Christians. The 
children abounded; the law is not so stringent upon them, and 
many wandering merchants were there selling figs (in the name of the 
Prophet, doubtless,) for their benefit, and elbowing onwards with 
baskets of grapes and cucumbers. Countrymen passed bristling over 
with arms, each with a huge bellyful of pistols and daggers in his 
girdle ; fierce, but not the least dangerous. Wild swarthy Arabs, 
who had come in with the caravans, walked solemnly about, very 
different in look and demeanour from the sleek inhabitants of the 
town. Greeks and Jews squatted and smoked, their shops tended by 
sallow-faced boys, with large eyes, who smiled and welcomed you in ; 
negroes bustled about in gaudy colours; and women, with black 
nose-bags and shuffling yellow slippers, chattered and bargained at 
the doors of the little shops. There was the rope quarter and the 
sweetmeat quarter, and the pipe bazaar and the arm bazaar, and the 
little turned-up shoe quarter, and the shops where ready-made jackets 
and pelisses were swinging, and the region where, under the ragged 
awnings, regiments of tailors were at work. The sun peeps through 
these awnings of mat or canvas, which are hung over the narrow 
lanes of the bazaar, and ornaments them with a thousand freaks of 
light and shadow. Cogia Hassan Alhabbal's shop is in a blaze of 
light ; while his neighbour, the barber and coffee-house keeper, has 
his premises, his low seats and narghiles, his queer pots and basins, 
in the shade. The cobblers are always good-natured ; there was one 
who, I am sure, has been revealed to me in my dreams, in a dirty old 
green turban, with a pleasant wrinkled face like an apple, twinkling 
his little gray eyes as he held them up to talk to the gossips, and 
smiling under a delightful old gray beard, which did the heart good 
to see. You divine the conversation between him and the cucumber- 
man, as the Sultan used to understand the language of birds. Are 
any of those cucumbers stuffed with pearls, and is that Armenian 
with the black square turban Haroun Alraschid in disguise, standing 
yonder by the fountain where the children are drinking — the gleaming 
marble fountain, chequered all over with light and shadow, and 
engraved with delicate Arabesques and sentences from the Koran ? 

But the greatest sensation of all is when the camels come. 
Whole strings of real camels, better even than in the procession of 
Blue Beard, with soft rolling eyes and bended necks, swaying from 
one side of the bazaar to the other to and fro, and treading gingerly 



398 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

with their great feet. O you fairy dreams of boyhood ! O you 
sweet meditations of half-holidays, here you are realized for half-an- 
hour ! The genius which presides over youth led us to do a good 
action that day. There was a man sitting in an open room, orna- 
mented with fine long-tailed sentences of the Koran : some in red, 
some in blue ; some written diagonally over the paper ; some so 
shaped as to represent ships, dragons, or mysterious animals. The 
man squatted on a carpet in the middle of this room, with folded 
arms, waggling his head to and fro, swaying about, and singing 
through his nose choice phrases from the sacred work. But from 
the room above came a clear noise of many little shouting voices, 
much more musical than that of Naso in the matted parlour, and the 
guide told us it was a school, so we went upstairs to look. 

I declare, on my conscience, the master was in the act of basti- 
nadoing a little mulatto boy ; his feet were in a bar, and the brute 
was laying on with a cane ; so we witnessed the howling of the poor 
boy, and the confusion of the brute who was administering the 
correction. The other children were made to shout, I believe, to 
drown the noise of their little comrade's howling; but the punish- 
ment was instantly discontinued as our hats came up over the stair- 
trap, and the boy cast loose, and the bamboo huddled into a corner, 
and the schoolmaster stood before us abashed. All the small scholars 
in red caps, and the little girls in gaudy handkerchiefs, turned their 
big wondering dark eyes towards us ; and the caning was over for that 
time, let us trust. I don't envy some schoolmasters in a future state. 
I pity that poor little blubbering Mahometan ; he will never be able 
to relish the " Arabian Nights " in the original, all his life long. 

From this scene we rushed off somewhat discomposed to make a 
breakfast off red mullets and grapes, melons, pomegranates, and 
Smyrna wine, at a dirty little comfortable inn, to which we were 
recommended : and from the windows of which we had a fine cheerful 
view of the gulf and its busy craft, and the loungers and merchants 
along the shore. There were camels unloading at one wharf, and 
piles of melons much bigger than the Gibraltar cannon-balls at 
another. It was the fig-season, and we passed through several alleys 
encumbered with long rows of fig-dressers, children and women for 
the most part, who were packing the fruit diligently into drums, 
dipping them in salt-water first, and spreading them neatly over with 
leaves ; while the figs and leaves are drying, large white worms 



WOMEN. 399 

crawl out of them, and swarm over the decks of the ships which 
carry them to Europe and to England, where small children eat them 
with pleasure — I mean the figs, not the worms — and where they are 
still served at wine-parties at the Universities. When fresh they 
are not better than elsewhere ; but the melons are of admirable 
flavour, and so large, that Cinderella might almost be accommodated 
with a coach made of a big one, without any very great distension 
of its original proportions. 

Our guide, an accomplished swindler, demanded two dollars as 
the fee for entering the mosque, which others of our party subse- 
quently saw for sixpence, so we did not care to examine that place 
of worship. But there were other cheaper sights, which were to the 
full as picturesque, for which there was no call to pay money, or, 
indeed, for a day, scarcely to move at all. I doubt whether a man 
who would smoke his pipe on a bazaar counter all day, and let the 
city flow by him, would not be almost as well employed as the most 
active curiosity-hunter. 

To be sure he would not see the women. Those in the bazaar 
were shabby people for the most part, whose black masks nobody 
would feel a curiosity to remove. You could see no more of their 
figures than if they had been stuffed in bolsters ; and even their feet 
were brought to a general splay uniformity by the double yellow 
slippers which the wives of true believers wear. But it is in the 
Greek and Armenian quarters, and among those poor Christians who 
were pulling figs, that you see the beauties ; and a man of a generous 
disposition may lose his heart half a dozen times a day in Smyrna. 
There was the pretty maid at work at a tambour-frame in an open 
porch, with an old duenna spinning by her side, and a goat tied up 
to the railings of the little court-garden ; there was the nymph who 
came down the stair with the pitcher on her head,' and gazed with 
great calm eyes, as large and stately as Juno's ; there was the gentle 
mother, bending over a queer cradle, in which lay a small crying 
bundle of infancy. All these three charmers were seen in a single 
street in the Armenian quarter, where the house-doors are all open, 
and the women of the families sit under the arches in the court. 
There was the fig-girl, beautiful beyond all others, with an immense 
coil of deep black hair twisted round a head of which Raphael was 
worthy to draw the outline, and Titian to paint the colour. I wonder 
the Sultan has not swept her off, or that the Persian merchants, who 



ipo A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

come with silks and sweetmeats, have not kidnapped her for the 
Shah of Tehran. 

We went to see the Persian merchants at their khan, and 
purchased some silks there from a swarthy, black-bearded man, with 
a conical cap of lambswool. Is it not hard to think that silks 
bought of a man in a lambswool cap, in a caravanserai, brought 
hither on the backs of camels, should have been manufactured after 
all at Lyons ? Others of our party bought carpets, for which the 
town is famous ; and there was one who absolutely laid in a stock of 
real Smyrna figs ; and purchased three or four real Smyrna sponges 
for his carriage ; so strong was his passion for the genuine article. 

I wonder that no painter has given us familiar views of the East : 
not processions, grand sultans, or magnificent landscapes ; but faithful 
transcripts of everyday Oriental life, such as each street will supply 
to him. The camels afford endless motives, couched in the market- 
places, lying by thousands in the camel square, snorting and 
bubbling after their manner, the sun blazing down on their backs, 
their slaves and keepers lying behind them in the shade : and the 
Caravan Bridge, above all, would afford a painter subjects for a dozen 
of pictures. Over this Roman arch, which crosses the Meles river, 
all the caravans pass on their entrance to the town. On one side, as 
we sat and looked at it, was a great row of plane-trees ; on the oppo- 
site bank, a deep wood of tall cypresses — in the midst of which rose 
up innumerable gray tombs, surmounted with the turbans of the 
denmct believers. Beside the stream, the view was less gloomy. 
There was under the plane-trees a little coffee-house, shaded by a 
trellis-work, covered over with a vine, and ornamented with many 
rows of shining pots and water-pipes, for which there was no use at 
noon-day now, in the time of Ramazan. Hard by the coffee-house 
was a garden and a bubbling marble fountain, and over the stream 
was a broken summer-house, to which amateurs may ascend, for the 
purpose of examining the river ; and all round the plane-trees plenty 
of stools for those who were inclined to sit and drink sweet thick 
coffee, or cool lemonade made of fresh green citrons. The master 
of the house, dressed in a white turban and light blue pelisse, lolled 
under the coffee-house awning; the slave in white with a crimson 
striped jacket, his face as black as ebony, brought us pipes and 
lemonade again, and returned to his station at the coffee-house, 
where he curled his black legs together, and began singing out of 



THE CARA VAN BRIDGE. 401 

his flat nose to the thrumming of a long guitar with wire strings. 
The instrument was not bigger than- a soup-ladle, with a long straight 
handle, but its music pleased the performer; for his eyes rolled 
shining about, and his head wagged, and he grinned with an innocent 
intensity of enjoyment that did one good to look at And there 
was a friend to share his pleasure : a Turk dressed in scarlet, and 
covered all over with daggers and pistols, sat leaning forward on his 
little stool, rocking about, and grinning quite as eagerly as the black 
minstrel. As he sang and we listened, figures of women bearing 
pitchers went passing over the Roman bridge, which we saw between 
the large trunks of the planes ; or gray forms of camels were seen 
stalking across it, the string preceded by the~little donkey, who is 
always here their long-eared conductor. 

These are very humble incidents of travel. Wherever the steam- 
boat touches the shore adventure retreats into the interior, and what 
is called romance vanishes. It won't bear the vulgar gaze ; or rather 
the light of common day puts it out, and it is only in the dark that it 
shines at all. There is no cursing and insulting of Giaours now. If 
a Cockney looks or behaves in a particularly ridiculous way, the little 
Turks come out and laugh at him. A Londoner is no longer a 
spittoon for true believers : and now that dark Hassan sits in his 
divan and drinks champagne, and Selim has a French watch, and 
Zuleika perhaps takes Morrison's pills, Byronism becomes absurd 
instead of sublime, and is only a foolish expression of Cockney 
wonder. They still occasionally beat a man for going into a mosque, 
but this is almost the only sign of ferocious vitality left in the Turk 
of the Mediterranean coast, and strangers may enter scores of 
mosques without molestation. The paddle-wheel is the great con- 
queror. Wherever the captain cries " Stop her ! " Civilization stops, 
and lands in the ship's boat, and makes a permanent acquaintance 
with the savages on shore. Whole hosts of crusaders have passed 
and died, and butchered here in vain. But to manufacture European 
iron into pikes and helmets was a waste of metal : in the shape of 
piston-rods and furnace-pokers it is irresistible ; and I think an 
allegory might be made showing how much stronger commerce is 
than chivalry, and finishing with a grand image of Mahomet's crescent 
being extinguished in Fulton's boiler. 

This I thought was the moral of the day's sights and adventures. 
We pulled off to the steamer in the afternoon — the Inbat blowing 

26 



402 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

fresh, and setting all the craft in the gulf dancing over its blue 
waters. We were presently under weigh again, the captain ordering 
his engines to work only at half power, so that a French steamer 
which was quitting Smyrna at the same time might come up with us, 
and fancy she could beat the irresistible " Tagus." Vain hope ! 
Just as the Frenchman neared us, the " Tagus " shot out like an 
arrow, and the discomfited Frenchman went behind. Though we all 
relished the joke exceedingly, there was a French gentleman on 
board who did not seem to be by any means tickled with it ; but he 
had received papers at Smyrna, containing news of Marshal Bugeaud's 
victory at Isley, and had this land victory to set against our harmless 
little triumph at sea. 

That night we rounded the Island of Mitylene : and the next day 
the coast of Troy was in sight, and the tomb of Achilles — a dismal- 
looking mound that rises in a low, dreary, barren shore — less lively 
and not more picturesque than the Scheldt or the mouth of the 
Thames. Then we passed Tenedos and the forts and town at the 
mouth of the Dardanelles. The weather was not too hot, the water 
as smooth as at Putney, and everybody happy and excited at the 
thought of seeing Constantinople to-morrow. We had music on 
board all the way from Smyrna. A German commis-voyageur, with 
a guitar, who had passed unnoticed until that time, produced his 
instrument about mid-day, and began to whistle waltzes. He whistled 
so divinely that the ladies left their cabins, and men laid down their 
books. He whistled a polka so bewitchingly that two young Oxford 
men began whirling round the deck, and performed that popular 
dance with much agility until they sank down tired. He still con- 
tinued an unabated whistling, and as nobody would dance, pulled off 
his coat, produced a pair of castanets, and whistling a mazurka, 
performed it with tremendous agility. His whistling made everybody 
gay and happy — made those acquainted who had not spoken before, 
and inspired such a feeling of hilarity in the ship, that that night, as 
we floated over the Sea of Marmora, a general vote was expressed for 
broiled bones and a regular supper-party. Punch was brewed, and 
speeches were made, and, after a lapse of fifteen years, I heard the 
" Old English Gentleman " and " Bright Chanticleer Proclaims the 
Morn," sung in such style that you would almost fancy the proctors 
must hear, and send us all home. 



( 403 ) 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONSTANTINOPLE. 

When we rose at sunrise to see the famous entry to Constantinople, 
we found, in the place of the city and the sun, a bright white fog, 
which hid both from sight, and which only disappeared as the vessel 
advanced towards the Golden Horn. There the fog cleared off as it 
were by flakes, and as you see gauze curtains lifted away, one by one, 
before a great fairy scene at the theatre. This will give idea enough of 
the fog ; the difficulty is to describe the scene afterwards, which was 
in truth the great fairy scene, than which it is impossible to conceive 
.anything more brilliant and magnificent. I can't go to any more 
romantic place than Drury Lane to draw my similes from — Drury 
Lane, such as we used to see it in our youth, when to our sight the 
grand last pictures of the melodrama or pantomime were as magni- 
ficent as any objects of nature we have seen with maturer eyes. Well, 
the view of Constantinople is as fine as any of Stanfield's best 
theatrical pictures, seen at the best period of youth, when fancy had 
all the bloom on her — when all the heroines who danced before the 
scene appeared as ravishing beauties, when there shone an unearthly 
splendour about Baker and Diddear — and the sound of the bugles 
and fiddles, and the cheerful clang of the cymbals, as the scene 
unrolled, and the gorgeous procession meandered triumphantly 
through it — caused a thrill of pleasure, and awakened an innocent 
fulness of sensual enjoyment that is only given to boys. 

The above sentence contains the following propositions : — The 
enjoyments of boyish fancy are the most intense and delicious in the 
world. Stanfield's panorama used to be the realization of the most 
intense youthful fancy. I puzzle my brains and find no better like- 
ness for the place. The view of Constantinople resembles the ne 
plus ultra of a Stanfield diorama, with a glorious accompaniment of 
music, spangled houris, warriors, and winding processions, feasting 
the eyes and the soul with light, splendour, and harmony. If you 
were never in this way during- your youth ravished at the play-house, 
^of course the whole comparison is useless : and you have no idea, 



404 A JOURNEY FROM C0RNH1LL TO CAIRO. 

from this description, of the effect which Constantinople produces on 
the mind. But if you were never affected by a theatre, no words can 
work upon your fancy, and typographical attempts to move it are of 
no use. For, suppose we combine mosque, minaret, gold, cypress^ 
water, blue, caiques, seventy-four, Galata, Tophana, Ramazan, Back- 
allum, and so forth, together, in ever so many ways, your imagination 
will never be able to depict a city out of them. Or, suppose I say 
the Mosque of St. Sophia is four hundred and seventy-three feet in 
height, measuring from the middle nail of the gilt crescent surmount- 
ing the dome to the ring in the centre stone ; the circle of the dome 
is one hundred and twenty-three feet in diameter, the windows ninety- 
seven in number — and all this may be true, for anything I know to 
the contrary : yet who is to get an idea of St. Sophia from dates, 
proper names, and calculations with a measuring-line? It can't be 
done by giving the age and measurement of all the buildings along 
the river, the names of all the boatmen who ply on it. Has your 
fancy, which pooh-poohs a simile, faith enough to build a city with a 
foot-rule ? Enough said about descriptions and similes (though 
whenever I am uncertain of one I am naturally most anxious to 
fight for it) : it is a scene not perhaps sublime, but charming, magni- 
ficent, and cheerful beyond any I have ever seen — the most superb 
combination of city and gardens, domes and shipping, hills and water, 
with the healthiest breeze blowing over it, and above it the brightest 
and most cheerful sky. 

It is proper, they say, to be disappointed on entering the town, or 
any of the various quarters of it, because the houses are not so 
magnificent on inspection, and seen singly as they are when beheld 
en masse from the waters. But why form expectations so lofty ? If 
you see a group of peasants picturesquely disposed at a fair, you don't 
suppose that they are all faultless beauties, or that the men's coats 
have no rags, and the women's gowns are made of silk and velvet : 
the wild ugliness of the interior of Constantinople or Pera has a 
charm of its own, greatly more amusing than rows of red bricks or 
drab stones, however symmetrical. With brick or stone they could 
never form those fantastic ornaments, railings, balconies, roofs, 
galleries, which jut in and out of the rugged houses of the city. As 
we went from Galata to Pera up a steep hill, which new-comers 
ascend with some difficulty, but which a porter, with a couple of 
hundredweight on his back, paces up without turning a hair, I 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 405 

thought the wooden houses far from being disagreeable objects, 
sights quite as surprising and striking as the grand one we had 
just left. 

Ivdo not know how the custom-house of his Highness is made 
to be a profitable speculation. As I left the ship, a man pulled after 
my boat, and asked for backsheesh, which was given him to the 
amount of about twopence. He was a custom-house officer, but I 
doubt whether this sum which he levied ever went to the revenue. 

I can fancy the scene about the quays somewhat to resemble the 
river of London in olden times, before coal-smoke had darkened the 
whole city with soot, and when, according to the old writers, there 
really was bright weather. The fleets of caiques bustling along the 
shore, or scudding over the blue water, are beautiful to look at : in 
Hollar's print London river is so studded over with wherry-boats, 
which bridges and steamers have since destroyed. Here the caique 
is still in full perfection : there are thirty thousand boats of the kind 
plying between the cities ; every boat is neat, and trimly carved and 
painted ; and I scarcely saw a man pulling in one of them that was 
not a fine specimen of his race, brawny and brown, with an open 
chest and a handsome face. They wear a thin shift of exceedingly 
light cotton, which leaves their fine brown limbs full play ; and with 
a purple sea for a back-ground, every one of these dashing boats 
forms a brilliant and glittering picture. Passengers squat in the 
inside of the boat ; so that as it passes you see little more than the 
heads of the true believers, with their red fez and blue tassel, and 
that placid gravity of expression which the sucking of a tobacco-pipe 
is sure to give to a man. 

The Bosphorus is enlivened by a multiplicity of other kinds of 
craft. There are the dirty men-of-war's boats of the Russians, with 
unwashed, mangy crews ; the great ferry-boats carrying hundreds of 
passengers to the villages ; the melon-boats piled up with enormous 
golden fruit ; his Excellency the Pasha's boat, with twelve men 
bending to their oars ; and his Highness's own caique, with a head 
like a serpent, and eight-and-twenty tugging oarsmen, that goes 
shooting by amidst the thundering of the cannon. Ships and 
steamers, with black sides and flaunting colours, are moored every- 
where, showing their flags, Russian and English, Austrian, American, 
and Greek ; and along the quays country ships from the Black Sea or 
the islands, with high carved poops and bows, such as you see in the 



406 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

pictures of the shipping of the seventeenth century. The vast groves 
and towers, domes and quays, tall minarets and spired spreading 
mosques of the three cities, rise all around in endless magnificence 
and variety, and render this water-street a scene of such delightful 
liveliness and beauty, that one never tires of looking at it. I lost a 
great number of the sights in and round Constantinople through 
the beauty of this admirable scene : but what are sights after all ? 
and isn't that the best sight which makes you most happy ? 

We were lodged at Pera at " Misseri's Hotel," the host of which has 
been made famous ere this time by the excellent book " Eothen,'' — 
a work for which all the passengers on board our ship had been 
battling, and which had charmed all — from our great statesman, our 
polished lawyer, our young Oxonian, who sighed over certain 
passages that he feared were wicked, down to the writer of this, who, 
after perusing it with delight, laid it down with wonder, exclaiming, 
" Aut Diabolus aut " — a book which has since (greatest miracle of 
all) excited a feeling of warmth and admiration in the bosom of the 
godlike, impartial, stony Athcnamm. Misseri, the faithful and 
chivalrous Tartar, is transformed into the most quiet and gentleman- 
like of landlords, a great deal more gentlemanlike in manner and 
appearance than most of us who sat at his table, and smoked cool 
pipes on his house-top, as we looked over the hill and the Russian 
palace to the water, and the Seraglio gardens shining in the blue. 
We confronted Misseri, "Eothen" in hand, and found, on examining 
him, that it 7vas "aut Diabolus aut amicus" — but the name is a 
secret ; I will never breathe it, though I am dying to tell it. 

The last good description of a Turkish bath, I think, was Lady 
Mary Wortley Montagu's — which voluptuous picture must have been 
painted at least a hundred and thirty years ago : so that another sketch 
may be attempted by a humbler artist in a different manner. The 
Turkish bath is certainly a novel sensation to an Englishman, and 
may be set down as a most queer and surprising event of his life. I 
made the valet-de-place or dragoman (it is rather a fine thing to have 
a dragoman in one's service) conduct me forthwith to the best 
appointed hummums in the neighbourhood; and we walked to a 
house at Tophana, and into a spacious hall lighted from above, 
which is the cooling-room of the bath. 

The spacious hall has a large fountain in the midst, a painted 
gallery running round it ; and many ropes stretched from one gallery 



A TURKISH BATH. 407 

to another, ornamented with profuse draperies of towels and blue 
cloths, for the use of the frequenters of the place. All round the 
room and the galleries were matted inclosures, fitted with numerous 
neat beds and cushions for reposing on, where lay a dozen of true 
believers smoking, or sleeping, or in the happy half-dozing state. I 
was led up to one of these beds, to rather a retired corner, in con- 
sideration of my modesty ; and to the next bed presently came a 
dancing dervish, who forthwith began to prepare for the bath. . 

When the dancing dervish had taken off his yellow sugar-loaf cap, 
his gown, shawl, &c, he was. arrayed in two large blue cloths ; a white 
one being thrown over his shoulders, and another in the shape of a 
turban plaited neatly round his head ■ the garments of which he 
divested himself were folded up in another linen, and neatly put by. 
I beg leave to state I was treated in precisely the same manner as 
the dancing dervish. 

The reverend gentleman then put on a pair of wooden pattens, 
which elevated him about six inches from the ground ; and walked 
down the stairs, and paddled across the moist marble floor of the 
hall, and in at a little door, by the which also Titmarsh entered. 
But I had none of the professional agility of the dancing dervish ; 
I staggered about very ludicrously upon the high wooden pattens ; 
and should have been down on my nose several times, had not the 
dragoman and the master of the bath supported me down the stairs 
and across the hall Dressed in three large cotton napkins, with a 
white turban round my head, I thought of Pall Mall with a sort of 
despair. I passed the little door, it was closed behind me — I was in 
the dark — I couldn't speak the language — in a white turban. Mon 
Dieu ! what was going to happen ! 

The dark room was the tepidarium, a moist oozing arched den, 
with a light faintly streaming from an orifice in the domed ceiling. 
Yells of frantic laughter and song came booming and clanging through 
the echoing arches, the doors clapped to with loud reverberations. 
It was the laughter of the followers of Mahound, rollicking and 
taking their pleasure in the public bath. 1 could not go into that 
place : I swore I would not ; they promised me a private room, and 
the dragoman left me. My agony at parting from that Christian 
cannot be described. 

When you get into the sudarium, or hot room, your first sensa- 
tions only occur about half a minute after entrance, when you feel 



4o8 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

that you are choking. I found myself in that state, seated on a 
marble slab ; the bath man was gone ; he had taken away the cotton 
turban and shoulder shawl : I saw I was in a narrow room of marble, 
with a vaulted roof, and a fountain of warm and cold water ; the 
atmosphere was in a steam, the choking sensation went off, and I felt 
a sort of pleasure presently in a soft boiling simmer, which, no doubt, 
potatoes feel when they are steaming. You are left in this state for 
about ten minutes ; it is warm certainly, but odd and pleasant, and 
disposes the mind to reverie. 

But let any delicate mind in Baker Street fancy my horror, when, 
on looking up out of this reverie, I saw a great brown wretch 
extended before me, only half dressed, standing on pattens, and 
exaggerated by them and the steam until he looked like an ogre, 
grinning in the most horrible way, and waving his arm, on which was 
a horsehair glove. He spoke, in his unknown nasal jargon, words 
which echoed through the arched room ; his eyes seemed astonishingly 
large and bright, his ears stuck out, and his head was all shaved, 
except a bristling top-knot, which gave it a demoniac fierceness. 

This description, I feel, is growing too frightful ; ladies who read 
it will be going into hysterics, or saying, " Well, upon my word, this 
is the most singular, the most extraordinary kind of language. Jane, 
my love, you will not read that odious book " — and so I will be brief. 
This grinning man belabours the patient violently with the horse 
brush. When he has completed the horse-hair part, and you lie 
expiring under a squirting fountain of warm water, and fancying all 
is done, he reappears with a large brass basin, containing a quantity 
of lather, in the midst of which is something like old Miss Mac 
Whirter's flaxen wig that she is so proud of, and that we have all 
laughed at. Just as you are going to remonstrate, the thing like the 
wig is dashed into your face and eyes, covered over with soap, and 
for five minutes you are drowned in lather : you can't see, the 
suds are frothing over your eyeballs ; you can't hear, the soap is 
whizzing into your ears ; can't gasp for breath, Miss Mac Whirter's wig 
is down your throat with half a pailful of suds in an instant — you are 
all soap. Wicked children in former days have jeered you, exclaim- 
ing, " How are you off for soap ? " You little knew what saponacity 
was till you entered a Turkish bath. 

When the whole operation is concluded, you are led — with what 
heartfelt joy I need not say — softly back to the cooling-room, having 



CONSTANTINOPLE. 409 

been robed in shawls and turbans as before. You are laid gently on 
the reposing bed ; somebody brings 'a narghile, which tastes as 
tobacco must taste in Mahomet's Paradise ; a cool sweet dreamy 
languor takes possession of the purified frame ; and half an hour of 
such delicious laziness is spent over the pipe as is unknown in 
Europe, where vulgar prejudice has most shamefully maligned 
indolence, calls it foul names, such as the father of all evil, and the 
like ; in 'fact, does not know how to educate idleness as those honest 
Turks do, and the fruit which, when properly cultivated, it bears. 

The after-bath state is the most delightful condition of laziness I 
ever knew, and I tried it wherever we went afterwards on our little 
tour. At Smyrna the whole business was much inferior to the method 
employed in the capital. At Cairo, after the soap, you are plunged 
into a sort of stone coffin, full of water, which is all but boiling. 
This has its charms ; but I could not relish the Egyptian shampooing 
A hideous old blind man (but very dexterous in his art) tried to 
break my back and dislocate my shoulders, but I could not see the 
pleasure of the practice ; and another fellow began tickling the soles 
of my feet, but I rewarded him with a kick that sent him off the 
bench. The pure idleness is the best, and I shall never enjoy such 
in Europe again. 

Victor Hugo, in his famous travels on the Rhine, visiting Cologne, 
gives a learned account of what he didn't see there. I have a 
remarkable catalogue of similar objects at Constantinople. I didn't 
see the dancing dervishes, it was Ramazan ; nor the howling dervishes 
at Scutari, it was Ramazan ; nor the interior of St. Sophia, nor the 
women's apartment of the Seraglio, nor the fashionable promenade at 
the Sweet Waters, always because it was Ramazan ; during which 
period the dervishes dance and howl but rarely, their legs and lungs 
being unequal to much exertion during a fast of fourteen hours. On 
account of the same holy season, the royal palaces and mosques are 
shut ; and though the valley of the Sweet Waters is there, no one 
goes to walk ; the people remaining asleep all day, and passing the 
night in feasting and carousing. The minarets are illuminated at this 
season ; even the humblest mosque at Jerusalem, or Jaffa, mounted a 
few circles of dingy lamps 5 those of the capital were handsomely 
lighted with many festoons of lamps, which had a fine effect from the 
w r ater. I need not mention other and constant illuminations of the 
city, which innumerable travellers have described — I mean the fires, 



410 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

There were three in Pera during our eight days' stay there ; but they 
did not last long enough to bring the Sultan out of bed to come and 
lend his aid. Mr. Hobhouse (quoted in the " Guide-book ") says, if 
a fire lasts an hour, the Sultan is bound to attend it in person ; and 
that people having petitions to present, have often set houses on fire 
for the purpose of forcing out this royal trump. The Sultan can't 
lead a very "jolly life," if this rule be universal. Fancy his Highness, 
in the midst of his moon-faced beauties, handkerchief in hand, and 
obliged to tie it round his face, and go out of his warm harem at 
midnight at the cursed cry of " Yang en Var ! " 

We saw his Highness in the midst of his people and their petitions, 
when he came to the mosque at Tophana ; not the largest, but one 
of the most picturesque of the public buildings of the city. The 
streets were crowded with people watching for the august arrival, and 
lined with the squat military in their bastard European costume ; the 
sturdy police, with bandeliers and brown surtouts, keeping order, 
driving off the faithful from the railings of the Esplanade through 
which their Emperor was to pass, and only admitting (with a very 
unjust partiality, I thought) us Europeans into that reserved space. 
Before the august arrival, numerous officers collected, colonels and 
pashas went by with their attendant running footmen ; the most 
active, insolent, and hideous of these great men, as I thought, being 
his Highness's black eunuchs, who went prancing through the crowd, 
which separated before them with every sign of respect. 

The common women were assembled by many hundreds : the 
yakmac, a muslin chin-cloth which they wear, makes almost every 
face look the same ; but the eyes and noses of these beauties are 
generally visible, and, for the most part, both these features are good. 
The jolly negresses wear the same white veil, but they are by no 
means so particular about hiding the charms of their good-natured 
black faces, and they let the cloth blow about as it lists, and grin 
unconfined. Wherever we went the negroes seemed happy. They 
have the organ of child-loving ; little creatures were always prattling 
on their shoulders, queer little things in night-gowns of yellow dimity, 
with great flowers, and pink, or red, or yellow shawls, with great eyes 
glistening underneath. Of such the black women seemed always the 
happy guardians. I saw one at a fountain, holding one child in her 
arms, and giving another a drink — a ragged little beggar — a sweet 
and touching picture of a black charity. 



THE SULTAN. 411 

I am almost forgetting his Highness the Sultan. About a hundred 
guns were fired off at clumsy intervals from the Esplanade facing the 
Bosphorus, warning us that the monarch had set off from his Summer 
Palace, and was on the way to his grand canoe. At last that vessel 
made its appearance ; the band struck up his favourite air ; his 
caparisoned horse was led down to the shore to receive him; the 
eunuchs, fat pashas, colonels, and officers of state gathering round as 
the Commander of the Faithful mounted. I had the indescribable 
happiness of seeing him at a very short distance. The Padishah, or 
Father of all the Sovereigns on earth, has not that majestic air which 
some sovereigns possess, and which makes the beholder's eyes wink, 
and his knees tremble under him : he has a black beard, and a 
handsome well-bred face, of a French cast ; he looks like a young 
French roue worn out by debauch ; his eyes bright, with black rings 
round them ; his cheeks pale and hollow. He was lolling on his 
horse as if he could hardly hold himself on the saddle : or as if his 
cloak, fastened with a blazing diamond clasp on his breast, and 
falling over his horse's tail, pulled him back. But the handsome 
sallow face of the Refuge of the World looked decidedly interesting 
and intellectual. I have seen many a young Don Juan at Paris, 
behind a counter, with such a beard and countenance ; the flame of 
passion still burning in his hollow eyes, while on his damp brow was 
stamped the fatal mark of premature decay. The man we saw 
cannot live many summers. Women and wine are said to have 
brought the Zilullah to this state ; and it is whispered by the drago- 
mans, or laquais-de-place, (from whom travellers at Constantinople 
generally get their political information,) that the Sultan's mother 
and his ministers conspire to keep him plunged in sensuality, that 
they may govern the kingdom according to their own fancies. 
Mr. Urquhart, I am sure, thinks that Lord Palmerston has something 
to do with the business, and drugs the Sultan's champagne for the 
benefit of Russia. 

As the Pontiff of Mussulmans passed into the mosque, a shower 
of petitions was flung from the steps where the crowd was collected, 
and over the heads of the gendarmes in brown. A general cry, as 
for justice, rose up ; and one old ragged woman came forward and 
burst through the throng, howling, and flinging about her lean arms, 
and baring her old shrunken breast. I never saw a finer action of 
tragic woe, or heard sounds more pitiful than those old passionate 



412 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

groans of hers. What was your prayer, poor old wretched soul ? 
The gendarmes hemmed her round, and hustled her away, but rather 
kindly. The Padishah went on quite impassible — the picture of 
debauch and ennui. 

• I like pointing morals, and inventing for myself cheap consola- 
tions, to reconcile me to that state of life into which it has pleased 
heaven to call me ; and as the Tight of the World disappeared round 
the corner, I reasoned pleasantly with myself about his Highness, and 
enjoyed that secret selfish satisfaction a man has, who sees he is 
better off than his neighbour. " Michael Angelo," I said, " you are 
still (by courtesy) young : if you had five hundred thousand a year, 
and were a great prince, I would lay a wager that men would discover 
in you a magnificent courtesy of demeanour, and a majestic presence 
that only belongs to the sovereigns of the world. If you had such 
an income, you think you could spend it with splendour ! distributing 
genial hospitalities, kindly alms, soothing misery, bidding humility be 
of good heart, rewarding desert. If you had such means of pur- 
chasing pleasure, you think, you rogue, you could relish it with gusto. 
But fancy being brought to the condition of the poor Tight of the 
Universe yonder ; and reconcile yourself with the idea that you are 
only a farthing rushlight. The cries of the poor widow fall as dead 
upon him as the smiles of the brightest eyes out of Georgia. He 
can't stir abroad but those abominable cannon begin roaring and 
deafening his ears. He can't see the world but over the shoulders of 
a row of fat pashas, and eunuchs, with their infernal ugliness. His 
ears can never be regaled with a word of truth, or blessed with an 
honest laugh. The only privilege of manhood left to him, he enjoys 
but for a month in the year, at this time of Ramazan, when he is 
forced to fast for fifteen hours ; and, by consequence, has the blessing 
of feeling hungry." Sunset during Tent appears to be his single 
moment of pleasure ; they say the poor fellow is ravenous by that 
time, and as the gun fires the dish-covers are taken off, so that for 
five minutes a day he lives and is happy over pillau, like another 
mortal. 

And yet, when floating by the Summer Palace, a barbaric edifice 
of wood and marble, with gilded suns blazing over the porticoes, and 
all sorts of strange ornaments and trophies figuring on the gates and 
railings — when we passed a long row of barred and filigreed windows, 
looking on the water — when we were told that those were the apart- 



THE ROYAL MAUSOLEUM. 413 

ments of his Highness's ladies, and actually heard them whispering 
and laughing behind the bars — a strange feeling of curiosity came 
over some ill-regulated minds — just to have one peep, one look at all 
those wondrous beauties, singing to the dulcimers, paddling in the 
fountains, dancing in the marble halls, or lolling on the golden 
cushions, as the gaudy black slaves brought pipes and coffee. This 
tumultuous movement was calmed by thinking of that dreadful 
statement of travellers, that in one of the most elegant halls there is 
a trap-door, on peeping below which you may see the Bosphorus 
running underneath, into which some luckless beauty is plunged 
occasionally, and the trap-door is shut, and the dancing and the 
singing, and the smoking and the laughing go on as before. They 
say it is death to pick up any of the sacks thereabouts, if a stray one 
should float by you. There were none any day when I passed, at 
least, on the surface of the water. 

It has been rather a fashion of our travellers to apologize for 
Turkish life, of late, and paint glowing, agreeable pictures of many 
of its institutions. The Celebrated author of " Palm-Leaves " (his 
name is famous under the date-trees of the Nile, and uttered with 
respect beneath the tents of the Bedaween,) has touchingly described 
Ibrahim Pasha's paternal fondness, who cut off a black slave's head 
for having dropped and maimed one of his children ; and has penned 
a melodious panegyric of " The Harem," and of the fond and 
beautiful duties of the inmates of that place of love, obedience, and 
seclusion. I saw, at the mausoleum of the late Sultan Mahmoud's 
family, a good subject for a Ghazul, in the true new Oriental manner. 

These royal burial-places are the resort of the pious Moslems. 
Lamps are kept burning there; and in the antechambers, copies of 
the Koran are provided for the use of believers ; and you never pass 
these cemeteries but you see Turks washing at the cisterns, previous 
to entering for prayer, or squatted on the benches, chanting passages 
from the sacred volume. Christians, I believe, are not admitted, but 
may look through the bars, and see the coffins of the defunct 
monarchs and children of the royal race. Each lies in his narrow 
sarcophagus, which is commonly flanked by huge candles, and 
covered with a rich embroidered pall. At the head of each coffin 
rises a slab, with a gilded inscription ; for the princesses, the slab 
is simple, not unlike our own monumental stones. The head- 
stones of the tombs of the defunct princes are decorated with a 



4U A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

turban, or, since the introduction of the latter article of dress, with 
the red fez. That of Mahmoud is decorated with the imperial 
aigrette. 

In this dismal but splendid museum, I remarked two little tombs 
with little red fezzes, very small, and for very young heads evidently, 
which were lying under the little embroidered palls of state. I forget 
whether they had candles too ; but their little flame of life was soon 
extinguished, and there was no need of many pounds of wax to typify 
it. These were the tombs of Mahmoud's grandsons, nephews of the 
present Light of the Universe, and children of his sister, the wife of 
Halil Pacha. Little children die in all ways ; these of the much- 
maligned Mahometan royal race perished by the bowstring. Sultan 
Mahmoud (may he rest in glory!) strangled the one; but, having 
some spark of human feeling, was so moved by the wretchedness and 
agony of the poor bereaved mother, his daughter, that his royal heart 
relented towards her, and he promised that, should she ever have 
another child, it should be allowed to live. He died ; and Abdul 
Medjid (may his name be blessed !), the debauched young man 
whom we just saw riding to the mosque, succeeded. His sister, 
whom he is said to have loved, became again a mother, and had a 
son. But she relied upon her father's word and her august brother's 
love, and hoped that this little one should be spared. The same 
accursed hand tore this infant out of its mother's bosom, and killed 
it. The poor woman's heart broke outright at this second calamity, 
and she died. But on her death-bed she sent for her brother, 
rebuked him as a perjurer and an assassin, and expired calling down 
the divine justice on his head. She lies now by the side of the two 
little fezzes. 

Now I say this would be a fine subject for an oriental poem. 
The details are dramatic and noble, and could be grandly touched by 
a fine artist. If the mother had borne a daughter, the child would 
have been safe ; that perplexity might be pathetically depicted as 
agitating the bosom of the young wife, about to become a mother. 
A son is born : you can see her despair and the pitiful look she casts 
on the child, and the way in which she hugs it every time the 
curtains of her door are removed. The Sultan hesitated probably ; 
he allowed the infant to live for six weeks. He could not bring his 
royal soul to inflict pain. He yields at last ; he is a martyr — to 
be pitied, not to be blamed. If he melts at his daughter's agony, he 



THE CHILD-MURDERER. 415 

is a man and a father. There are men and fathers too in the much 
maligned orient. 

Then comes the second act of the tragedy. The new hopes, the 
fond yearnings, the terrified misgivings, the timid belief, and weak 
confidence ; the child that is born— and dies smiling prettily— and 
the mother's heart is rent so, that it can love, or hope, or suffer no 
more. Allah is God ! She sleeps by the little fezzes. Hark ! 
the guns are booming over the water, and his Highness is coming 
from his prayers. 

After the murder of that little child, it seems to me one can 
never look with anything but horror upon the butcherly Herod who 
ordered it. The death of the seventy thousand Janissaries ascends 
to historic dignity, and takes rank as war. But a great Prince and 
Light of the Universe, who procures abortions and throttles little 
babies, dwindles away into such a frightful insignificance of crime, 
that those may respect him who will. I pity their Excellencies the 
Ambassadors, who are obliged to smirk and cringe to such a rascal. 
To do the Turks justice — and two days' walk in Constantinople will 
settle this fact as well as a year's residence in the city — the people do 
not seem in the least animated by this Herodian spirit. I never saw 
more kindness to children than among all classes, more fathers 
walking about with little solemn Mahometans in red caps and big 
trousers, more business going on than in the toy quarter, and in the 
Atmeidan. Although you may see there the Thebaic stone set up by 
the Emperor Theodosius, and the bronze column of serpents which 
Murray says was brought from Delphi, but which my guide informed 
me was the very one exhibited by Moses in the wilderness, yet I 
found the examination of these antiquities much less pleasant than to 
look at the many troops of children assembled on the plain to play ; 
and to watch them as they were dragged about in little queer arobas, 
or painted carriages, which are there kept for hire. I have a picture 
of one of them now in my eyes : a little green oval machine, with 
flowers rudely painted round the window, out of which two smiling 
heads are peeping, the pictures of happiness. An old, good-humoured, 
gray-bearded Turk is tugging the cart ; and behind it walks a lady in 
a yakmac and yellow slippers, and a black female slave, grinning 
as usual, towards whom the little coach-riders are looking. A small, 
sturdy, barefooted Mussulman is examining the cart with some feelings 
of envy : he is too poor to purchase a ride for himself and the round- 



416 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

faced puppy-dog, which he is hugging in his arms as young ladies in 
our country do dolls. 

All the neighbourhood of the Atmeidan is exceedingly picturesque 
— the mosque court and cloister, where the Persians have their stalls 
of sweetmeats and tobacco ; a superb sycamore-tree grows in the 
middle of this, overshadowing an aromatic fountain ; great flocks of 
pigeons are settling in corners of the cloister, and barley is sold at the 
gates, with which the good-natured people feed them. From the 
Atmeidan you have a fine view of St. Sophia : and here stands a 
mosque which struck me as being much more picturesque and sump- 
tuous — the Mosque of Sultan Achmed, with its six gleaming white 
minarets and its beautiful courts and trees. Any infidels may enter the 
court without molestation, and, looking through the barred windows 
of the mosque, have a view of its airy and spacious interior. A small 
audience of women was collected there when I looked in, squatted on 
the mats, and listening to a preacher, who was walking among them, 
and speaking with great energy. My dragoman interpreted to me the 
sense of a few words of his sermon : he was warning them of the 
danger of gadding about to public places, and of the immorality of 
too much talking ; and, I daresay, we might have had more valuable 
information from him regarding the follies of womankind, had not a 
tall Turk clapped my interpreter on the shoulder, and pointed him to 
be off. 

Although the ladies are veiled, and muffled with the ugliest dresses 
in the world, yet it appears their modesty is alarmed in spite of all the 
coverings which they wear. One day, in the bazaar, a fat old body, 
with diamond rings on her fingers, that were tinged with henne' of a 
logwood colour, came to the shop where I was purchasing slippers, 
with her son, a young Aga of six years of age, dressed in a braided 
frock-coat, with a huge tassel to his fez, exceeding fat, and of a most 
solemn demeanour. The young Aga came for a pair of shoes, and 
his contortions were so delightful as he tried them, that I remained look- 
ing on with great pleasure, wishing for Leech to be at hand to sketch 
his lordship and his fat mamma, who sat on the counter. That lady 
fancied I was looking at her, though, as far as I could see, she had 
the figure and complexion of a roly-poly pudding ; and so, with quite 
a premature bashfulness, she sent me a message by the shoemaker, 
ordering me to walk away if I had made my purchases, for that ladies 
of her rank did not choose to be stared at by strangers ; and I was 



MODESTY. 417 

obliged to take my leave, though with sincere regret, for the little lord 
had just squeezed himself into an attitude than which I never saw 
anything more ludicrous in General Tom Thumb. When the ladies 
of the Seraglio come to that bazaar with their cortege of infernal black 
eunuchs, strangers are told to move on briskly. I saw a bevy of about 
eight of these, with their aides-de-camp ; but they were wrapped up, 
and looked just as vulgar and ugly as the other women, and were not, 
I suppose, of the most beautiful sort. The poor devils are allowed to 
come out, half-a-dozen times in the year, to spend their little wretched 
allowance of pocket-money in purchasing trinkets and tobacco; all the 
rest of the time they pursue the beautiful duties of their existence in 
the walls of the sacred harem. 

Though strangers are not allowed to see the interior of the cage in 
which these birds of Paradise are confined, yet many parts of the 
Seraglio are free to the curiosity of visitors, who choose to drop a 
backsheesh here and there. I landed one morning at the Seraglio 
point from Galata, close by an ancient pleasure-house of the defunct 
Sultan ; a vast broad-brimmed pavilion, that looks agreeable enough 
to be a dancing-room for ghosts now : there is another summer- 
house, the Guide-book cheerfully says, whither the Sultan goes to 
sport with his women and mutes. A regiment of infantry, with their 
music at their head, were marching to exercise in the outer grounds 
of the Seraglio ; and we followed them, and had an opportunity of 
seeing their evolutions, and hearing their bands, upon a fine green 
plain under the Seraglio walls, where stands one solitary column, 
erected in memory of some triumph of some Byzantian emperor. 

There were three battalions of the Turkish infantry exercising 
here ; and they seemed to perform their evolutions in a very satis- 
factory manner : that is, they fired all together, and charged and halted 
in very straight lines, and bit off imaginary cartridge-tops with great 
fierceness and regularity, and made all their ramrods ring to measure, 
just like so many Christians. The men looked small, young, clumsy, 
and ill-built ; uncomfortable in their shabby European clothes ; and 
about the legs, especially, seemed exceedingly weak and ill-formed. 
Some score of military invalids were lolling in the sunshine, about a 
fountain and a marble summer-house that stand on the ground, 
watching their comrades' manoeuvres (as if they could never have 
enough of that delightful pastime) ; and these sick were much better 
cared for than their healthy companions. Each man had two dressing- 

27 



4i 8 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

gowns, one of white cotton, and an outer wrapper of warm brown 
woollen. Their heads were accommodated with wadded cotton night- 
caps ; and it seemed to me, from their condition and from the 
excellent character of the military hospitals, that it would be much 
more wholesome to be ill than to be well in the Turkish service. 

Facing this green esplanade, and the Bosphorus shining beyond 
it, rise the great walls of the outer Seraglio Gardens : huge masses of 
ancient masonry, over which peep the roofs of numerous kiosks and 
outhouses, amongst thick evergreens, planted so as to hide the 
beautiful frequenters of the place from the prying eyes and telescopes. 
We could not catch a glance of a single figure moving in these great 
pleasure-grounds. The road winds round the walls ; and the outer 
park, which is likewise planted with trees, and diversified by garden- 
plots and cottages, had more the air of the outbuildings of a homely 
English park, than of a palace which we must all have imagined to be 
the most stately in the world. The most commonplace water-carts 
were passing here and there ; roads were being repaired in the 
Macadamite manner ; and carpenters were mending the park -palings, 
just as they do in Hampshire. The next thing you might fancy would 
be the Sultan walking out with a spud and a couple of dogs, on the way 
to meet the post-bag and the Saint James's Chronicle. 

The palace is no palace at all. It is a great town of pavilions, 
built without order, here and there, according to the fancy of suc- 
ceeding Lights of the Universe, or their favourites. The only row of 
domes which looked particularly regular or stately, were the kitchens. 
As you examined the buildings they had a ruinous, dilapidated look : 
they are not furnished, it is said, with particular splendour, — not 
a bit more elega.ntly than Miss Jones's seminary for young ladies, 
which we may be sure is much more comfortable than the extensive 
establishment of his Highness Abdul Medjid. 

In the little stable I thought to see some marks of royal magni- 
ficence, and some horses worthy of the king of all kings. But the 
Sultan is said to be a very timid horseman : the animal that is always 
kept saddled for him did not look to be worth twenty pounds ; and 
the rest of the horses in the shabby, dirty stalls, were small, ill-kept, 
common-looking brutes. You might see better, it seemed to me, at 
a country inn stable on any market-day. 

The kitchens are the most sublime part of the Seraglio. There 
are nine of these great halls, for all ranks, from his Highness down- 



THE SULTANAS' PUFFS. 419 

wards, where many hecatombs are roasted daily, according to the 
accounts, and where cooking goes on with a savage Homeric gran- 
deur. Chimneys are despised in these primitive halls ; so that the 
roofs are black with the smoke of hundreds of furnaces, which 
escapes through apertures in the domes above. These, too, give the 
chief light in the rooms, which streams downwards, and thickens and 
mingles with the smoke, and so murkily lights up hundreds of swarthy 
figures busy about tne spits and the cauldrons. Close to the door by 
which we entered they were making pastry for the sultanas ; and the 
chief pastrycook, who knew my guide, invited us courteously to see 
the process, and partake of the delicacies prepared for those charming 
lips. How those sweet lips must shine after eating these puffs ! First, 
huge sheets of dough are rolled out till the paste is about as thin as 
silver paper: then an artist forms the dough-muslin into a sort of 
drapery, curling it round and round in many fanciful and pretty 
shapes, until it is all got into the circumference of a round metal tray 
in which it is baked. Then the cake is drenched in grease most 
profusely ; and, finally, a quantity of syrup is poured over it, when 
the delectable mixture is complete. The moon-faced ones are said 
to devour immense quantities of this wholesome food ; and, in fact, 
are eating grease and sweetmeats from morning till night. I don't 
like to think what the consequences may be, or allude to the agonies 
which the delicate creatures must inevitably suffer. 

The good-natured chief pastrycook filled a copper basin with 
greasy puffs ; and, dipping a dubious ladle into a large cauldron, 
containing several gallons of syrup, poured a liberal portion over the 
cakes, and invited us to eat. One of the tarts was quite enough for 
me : and I excused myself on the plea of ill-health from imbibing 
any more grease and sugar. But my companion, the dragoman, 
finished some forty puffs in a twinkling. They slipped down his 
opened jaws as the sausages do down clowns' throats in a pantomime. 
His moustaches shone with grease, and it dripped down his beard and 
fingers. We thanked the smiling chief pastrycook, and rewarded him 
handsomely for the tarts. It is something to have eaten of the 
dainties prepared for the ladies of the harem ; but I think Mr. Cockle 
ought to get the names of the chief sultanas among the exalted patrons 
of his antibilious pills. 

From the kitchens we passed into the second court of the Seraglio, 
beyond which is death. The Guide-book only hints at the dangers 



420 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

which would befall a stranger caught prying in the mysterious first 
court of the palace. I have read " Bluebeard," and don't care or 
peeping into forbidden doors ; so that the second court was quite 
enough for rue ; the pleasure of beholding it being heightened, as it 
were, by the notion of the invisible danger sitting next door, with 
uplifted scimitar ready to fall on you — present though not seen. 

A cloister runs along one side of this court ; opposite is the hall 
of the divan, " large but low, covered with lead, and gilt, after the 
Moorish manner, plain enough." The Grand Vizier sits in this place, 
and the ambassadors used to wait here, and be conducted hence on 
horseback, attired with robes of honour. But the ceremony is now, 
I believe, discontinued ; the English envoy, at any rate, is not allowed 
to receive any backsheesh, and goes away as he came, in the habit of 
his own nation. On the right is a door leading into the interior of 
the Seraglio ; none pass through it but such as are sent for, the Guide- 
book says : it is impossible to top the terror of that description. 

About this door lads and servants were lolling, ichoglans and 
pages, with lazy looks and shabby dresses ; and among them, sunning 
himself sulkily on a bench, a poor old fat, wrinkled, dismal white 
eunuch, with little fat white hands, and a great head sunk into his 
chest, and two sprawling little legs that seemed incapable to hold up 
his bloated old body. He squeaked out some surly reply to my 
friend the dragoman, who, softened and sweetened by the tarts he 
had just been devouring, was, no doubt, anxious to be polite : and 
the poor worthy fellow walked away rather crestfallen at this return 
of his salutation, and hastened me out of the place. 

The palace of the Seraglio, the cloister with marble pillars, the 
hall of the ambassadors, the impenetrable gate guarded by eunuchs 
and ichoglans, have a romantic look in print ; but not so in reality. 
Most of the marble is wood, almost all the gilding is faded, the 
guards are shabby, the foolish perspectives painted on the walls 
are half cracked oft" The place looks like Vauxhall in the day- 
time. 

We passed out of the second court under The Sublime Porte — 
which is like a fortified gate of a German town of the middle ages — 
into the outer court, round which are public offices, hospitals, and 
dwellings of the multifarious servants of the palace. This place is 
very wide and picturesque : there is a pretty church of Byzantine 
architecture at the further end ; and in the midst of the court a 



A LADY IN \ A BROUGHAM. 421 

magnificent plane-tree, of prodigious dimensions and fabulous age 
according to the guides ; St. Sophia towers in the further distance : 
and from here, perhaps, is the best view of its light swelling domes 
and beautiful proportions. The Porte itself, too, forms an excellent 
subject for the sketch er, if the officers of the court will permit him 
to design it. I made the attempt, and a couple of Turkish beadles 
looked on very good-naturedly for some time at the progress of the 
drawing ; but a good number of other spectators speedily joined 
them, and made a crowd, which is not permitted, it would seem, in 
the Seraglio ; so I was told to pack up my portfolio, and remove the 
cause of the disturbance, and lost my drawing of the Ottoman Porte. 
I don't think I have anything more to say about the city which 
has not been much better told by graver travellers. I, with them, 
could see (perhaps it was the preaching of the politicians that warned 
me of the fact) that we are looking on at the last days of an empire ; 
and heard many stories of weakness, disorder, and oppression. 
I even saw a Turkish la'dy drive up to Sultan Achmet's mosque in a 
b?-ougkam. Is not that a subject to moralize upon? And might one 
not draw endless conclusions from it, that the knell of the Turkish 
dominion is rung ; that the European spirit and institutions once 
admitted can never be rooted out again ; and that the scepticism 
prevalent amongst the higher orders must descend ere very long to 
the lower ; and the cry of the muezzin from the mosque become a 
mere ceremony ? 

But as I only stayed eight days in this place, and knew not a 
syllable of the language, perhaps it is as well to pretermit any 
disquisitions about the spirit of the people. I can only say that they 
looked to be very good-natured, handsome, and lazy ; that the 
women's yellow slippers are very ugly ; that the kabobs at the shop 
hard by the Rope Bazaar are very hot and good ; and that at the 
Armenian cook-shops they serve you delicious fish, and a stout raisin 
wine of no small merit. There came in, as we sat and dined there at 
sunset, a good old Turk, who called for a penny fish, and sat down 
under a tree very humbly, and ate it with his own bread. We made 
that jolly old Mussulman happy with a quart of the raisin wine; and 
his eyes twinkled with every fresh glass, and he wiped his old beard 
delighted, and talked and chirped a good deal, and, I dare say, told 
us the whole state of the empire. He was the only Mussulman with 
whom I attained any degree of intimacy during my stay in Constanti- 



422 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

nople ; and you will see that, for obvious reasons, I cannot divulge 
the particulars of our conversation. 

" You have nothing to say, and you own it," says somebody : 
" then why write ? " That question perhaps (between ourselves) 
I have put likewise ; and yet, my dear sir, there are some things worth 
remembering even in this brief letter : that woman in the brougham 
is an idea of significance : that comparison of the Seraglio to 
Vauxhall in the daytime is a true and real one ; from both of which 
your own great soul and ingenious philosophic spirit may draw 
conclusions, that I myself have modestly forborne to press. You are 
too clever to require a moral to be tacked to all the fables you read, 
as is done for children in the spelling-books ; else I would tell you 
that the government of the Ottoman Porte seems to be as rotten, as 
wrinkled, and as feeble as the old eunuch I saw crawling about it in 
the sun ; that when the lady drove up in a brougham to Sultan 
Achmet, I felt that the schoolmaster was really abroad ; and that the 
crescent will go out before that luminary, as meekly as the moon does; 
before the sun. 




C 423 ) 



CHAPTER VIII. 

RHODES. 

The sailing of a vessel direct for Jaffa brought a great number of 
passengers together, and our decks were covered with Christian, Jew, 
and Heathen. In the cabin we were Poles and Russians, Frenchmen, 
Germans, Spaniards, and Greeks ; on the deck were squatted several 
little colonies of people of different race and persuasion. There was 
a Greek Papa, a noble figure with a flowing and venerable white beard, 
who had been living on bread-and-water for I don't know how many 
years, in order to save a little money to make the pilgrimage to 
Jerusalem. There were several families of Jewish Rabbis, who 
celebrated their " feast of tabernacles " on board ; their chief men per- 
forming worship twice or thrice a day, dressed in their pontifical 
habits, and bound with phylacteries : and there were Turks, who had 
their own ceremonies and usages, and wisely kept aloof from their 
neighbours of Israel. 

The dirt of these children of captivity exceeds all possibility of 
description ; the profusion of stinks which they raised, the grease of 
their venerable garments and faces, the horrible messes cooked in the 
filthy pots, and devoured with the nasty fingers, the squalor of mats, 
pots, old bedding, and foul carpets of our Hebrew friends, could 
hardly be painted by Swift, in his dirtiest mood, and cannot be, of 
course, attempted by my timid and genteel pen. What would they 
say in Baker Street to some sights with which our new friends favoured 
us ? What would your ladyship have said if you had seen the 
interesting Greek nun combing her hair over the cabin — combing it with 
the natural fingers, and, averse to slaughter, flinging the delicate little 
intruders, which she found in the course of her investigation, gently 
into the great cabin ? Our attention was a good deal occupied in 
watching the strange ways and customs of the various comrades 
of ours. 

The Jews were refugees from Poland, going to lay their bones to 
rest in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and performing with exceeding 
rigour the offices of their religion. At morning and evening you were 



424 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

sure to see the chiefs of the families, arrayed in white robes, bowing 
over their books, at prayer. Once a week, on the eve before the 
Sabbath, there was a general washing in Jewry, which sufficed until 
the ensuing Friday. The men wore long gowns and caps of fur, or 
else broad-brimmed hats, or, in service time, bound on their heads 




little iron boxes, with the sacred name engraved on them. Among 
the lads there were some beautiful faces ; and among the women your 
humble servant discovered one who was a perfect rosebud of beauty 
when first emerging from her Friday's toilette, and for a day or two 
afterwards, until each succeeding day's smut darkened those fresh and 
delicate cheeks of hers. We had some very rough weather in the 
course of the passage from Constantinople to Jaffa, and the sea 
washed over and over our Israelitish friends and their baggages and 
bundles ; but though they were said to be rich, they would not 
afford to pay for cabin shelter. One father of a family, finding his 
progeny half drowned in a squall, vowed he would pay for a cabin ; 
but the weather was somewhat finer the next day, and he could not 
squeeze out his dollars, and the ship's authorities would not admit 
him except upon payment. 

This unwillingness to part with money is not only found amongst 
the followers of Moses, but in those of Mahomet, an&.Christians too. 



JEW PILGRIMS. 425 

When we went to purchase in the bazaars, after offering money for 
change, the honest fellows would frequently keep back several 
piastres, and when urged to refund, would give most dismally : and 
begin doling out penny by penny, and utter pathetic prayers to their 
customer not to take any more. I bought five or six pounds' worth 
of Broussa silks for the womenkind, in the bazaar at Constantinople, 
and the rich Armenian who sold them begged for three-halfpence to 
pay his boat to Galata. There is something naif and amusing in this 
exhibition of cheatery — this simple cringing, and wheedling, and 
passion for twopence-halfpenny. It was pleasant to give a millionnaire 
beggar an alms, and laugh in his face and say, " There, Dives, there's 
a penny for you : be happy, you poor old swindling scoundrel, as 
far as a penny goes." I used to watch these Jews on shore, and 
making bargains with one another as soon as they came on board ; 
the battle between vendor and purchaser was an agony — they 
shrieked, clasped hands, appealed to one another passionately ; their 
handsome, noble faces assumed a look of woe — quite an heroic 
eagerness and sadness about a farthing. 

Ambassadors from our Hebrews descended at Rhodes to buy 
provisions, and it was curious to see their dealings : there was our 
venerable Rabbi, who, robed in white and silver, and bending over 
his book at the morning service, looked like a patriarch, and whom I 
saw chaffering about a fowl with a brother Rhodian Israelite. How 
they fought over the body of that lean animal ! The street swarmed 
with Jews : goggling eyes looked out from the old carved casements — 
hooked noses issued from the low antique doors — Jew boys driving 
donkeys, Hebrew mothers nursing children, dusky, tawdry, ragged 
young beauties and most venerable gray-bearded fathers were all 
gathered round about the affair of the hen ! And at the same 
time that our Rabbi was arranging the price of it, his children were 
instructed to procure bundles of green branches to decorate the ship 
during their feast. Think of the centuries during which these 
wonderful people have remained unchanged ; and how, from the days 
of Jacob downwards, they have believed and swindled ! 

The Rhodian Jews, with their genius for filth, have made their 
quarter of the noble, desolate old town, the most ruinous and 
wretched of all. The escutcheons of the proud old knights are still 
carved over the doors, whence issue these miserable greasy hucksters 
and pedlars. The Turks respected these emblems of the brave 



426 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

enemies whom they had overcome, and left them untouched. When 
the French seized Malta they were by no means so delicate : they 
effaced armorial bearings with their usual hot-headed eagerness ; and 
a few years after they had torn down the coats-of-arms of the gentry, 
the heroes of Malta and Egypt were busy devising heraldry for them- 
selves, and were wild to be barons and counts of the empire. 

The chivalrous relics at Rhodes are very superb. I know of no 
buildings whose stately and picturesque aspect seems to correspond 
better with one's notions of their proud founders. The towers and 
gates are warlike and strong, but beautiful and aristocratic : you see 
that they must have been high-bred gentlemen who built them. 
The edifices appear in almost as perfect a condition as when they 
were in the occupation of the noble Knights of St. John ; and they 
have this advantage over modern fortifications, that they are a thou- 
sand times more picturesque. Ancient war condescended to orna- 
ment itself, and built fine carved castles and vaulted gates : whereas, 
to judge from Gibraltar and Malta, nothing can be less romantic 
than the modern military architecture ; which sternly regards the 
fighting, without in the least heeding the war-paint. Some of the 
huge artillery with which the place was defended still lies in the 
bastions ; and the touch-holes of the guns are preserved by being 
covered with rusty old corselets, worn by defenders of the fort three 
hundred years ago. The Turks, who battered down chivalry, seem 
to be waiting their turn of destruction now. In walking through 
Rhodes one is strangely affected by witnessing the signs of this 
double decay. For instance, in the streets of the knights, you see 
noble houses, surmounted by noble escutcheons of superb knights, 
who lived there, and prayed, and quarrelled, and murdered the 
Turks ; and were the most gallant pirates of the inland seas ; and 
made vows of chastity, and robbed and ravished ; and, professing 
humility, would admit none but nobility into their order ; and died 
recommending themselves to sweet St. John, and calmly hoping for 
heaven in consideration of all the heathen they had slain. When 
this superb fraternity was obliged to yield to courage as great as 
theirs, faith as sincere, and to robbers even more dexterous and 
audacious than the noblest knight who ever ,sang a canticle to the 
Virgin, these halls were filled by magnificent Pashas and Agas, who 
lived here in the intervals of war, and having conquered its best 
champions, despised Christendom and chivalry pretty much as an 



MAHOMETANISM BANKRUPT. 427 

Englishman despises a Frenchman. Now the famous house is let 
to a shabby merchant, who has his little beggarly shop in the bazaar ; 
to a small officer, who ekes out his wretched pension by swindling, 
and who gets his pay in bad coin. Mahometanism pays in pewter 
now, in place of silver and gold. The lords of the world have run 
to seed. The powerless old sword frightens nobody now — the 
steel is turned to pewter too, somehow, and will no longer shear a 
Christian head off any shoulders. In the Crusades my wicked 
sympathies have always been with the Turks. They seem to me 
the best Christians of the two ; more humane, less brutally pre- 
sumptuous about their own merits, and more generous in esteeming 
their neighbours. As far as I can get at the authentic story, Saladin 
is a pearl of refinement compared to the brutal beef-eating Richard — 
about whom Sir Walter Scott has led all the world astray. 

When shall we have a real account of those times and heroes — 
no good-humoured pageant, like those of the Scott romances — but 
a real authentic story to instruct and frighten honest people of the 
present day, and make them thankful that the grocer governs the 
world now in place of the baron ? Meanwhile a man of tender 
feelings may be pardoned for twaddling a little over this sad spectacle 
of the decay of two of the great institutions of the world. Knight- 
hood is gone — amen ; it expired with dignity, its face to the foe : 
and old Mahometanism is lingering about just ready to drop. But 
it is unseemly to see such a Grand Potentate in such a state of 
decay : the son of Bajazet Ilderim insolvent ; the descendants of 
the Prophet bullied by Calmucs and English and whippersnapper 
Frenchmen ; the Fountain of Magnificence done up, and obliged to 
coin pewter ! Think of the poor dear houris in Paradise, how sad 
they must look as the arrivals of the Faithful become less and less 
frequent every day. I can fancy the place beginning to wear the 
fatal Vauxhall look of the Seraglio, and which has pursued me ever 
since I saw it : the fountains of eternal wine are beginning to run 
rather dry, and of a questionable liquor ; the ready-roasted-meat 
trees may cry, " Come eat me," every now and then, in a faint voice, 
without any gravy in it — but the Faithful begin to doubt about the 
quality of the victuals. Of nights you may see the houris sitting 
sadly under them, darning their faded muslins : AH, Omar, and the 
Imaums are reconciled and have gloomy consultations: and the 
Chief of the Faithful himself, the awful camel-driver, the supernatural 



428 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

husband of Khadijah, sits alone in a tumble-down kiosk, thinking 
moodily of the destiny that is impending over him j and of the day 
when his gardens of bliss shall be as vacant as the bankrupt Olympus. 

All the town of Rhodes has this appearance of decay and ruin, 
except a few consuls' houses planted on the sea-side, here and there, 
with bright flags flaunting in the sun ; fresh paint ; English crockery ; 
shining mahogany, &c, — so many emblems of the new prosperity of 
their trade, while the old inhabitants were going to rack — the fine 
Church of St. John, converted into a mosque, is a ruined church, 
with a ruined mosque inside ; the fortifications are mouldering away, 
as much as time will let them. There was considerable bustle and 
stir about the little port ; but it was a bustle of people who looked 
for the most part to be beggars ; and I saw no shop in the bazaar 
that seemed to have the value of a pedlar's pack. 

I took, by way of guide, a young fellow from Berlin, a journeyman 
shoemaker, who had just been making a tour in Syria, and who pro- 
fessed to speak both Arabic and Turkish quite fluently — which I 
thought he might have learned when he was a student at college, 
before he began his profession of shoemaking; but I found he only 
knew about three words of Turkish, which were produced on every 
occasion, as I walked under his guidance through the desolate streets 
of the noble old town. We went out upon the lines of fortification, 
through an ancient gate and guard-house, where once a chapel pro- 
bably stood, and of which the roofs were richly carved and gilded. 
A ragged squad of Turkish soldiers lolled about the gate now ; a 
couple of boys on a donkey ; a -grinning slave on a mule ; a pair of 
women flapping along in yellow papooshes; a basket-maker sitting 
under an antique carved portal, and chanting or howling as he plaited 
his osiers : a peaceful well of water, at which knights' chargers had 
drunk, and at which the double-boyed donkey was now refreshing 
himself — would have made a pretty picture for a sentimental artist. 
As he sits, and endeavours to make a sketch of this plaintive little 
comedy, a shabby dignitary of the island comes clattering by on a 
thirty-shilling horse, and two or three of the ragged soldiers leave 
their pipes to salute him as he passes under the Gothic archway. 

The astonishing brightness and clearness of the sky under which 
the island seemed to bask, struck me as surpassing anything I had 
seen — not even at Cadiz, or the Piraeus, had I seen sands so yellow, 



A FINE DAY. 429 

or water so magnificently blue. The houses of the people along the 
shore were but poor tenements, with humble courtyards and gardens ; 
but every fig-tree was gilded and bright, as if it were in an Hesperian 
orchard ; the palms, planted here and there, rose with a sort of halo 
of light round about them ; the creepers on the walls quite dazzled 
with the brilliancy of their flowers and leaves ; the people lay in the 
cool shadows, happy and idle, with handsome solemn faces ; nobody 
seemed to be at work ; they only talked a very little, as if idleness 
and silence were a condition of the delightful shining atmosphere in 
which they lived. 

We went down to an old mosque by the sea-shore, with a cluster 
of ancient domes hard by it, blazing in the sunshine, and carved all 
over with names of Allah, and titles of old pirates and generals who 
reposed there. The guardian of the mosque sat in the garden-court, 
upon a high wooden pulpit, lazily wagging his body to and fro, and 
singing the praises of the Prophet gently through his nose, as the 
breeze stirred through the trees overhead, and cast chequered and 
changing shadows over the paved court, and the little fountains, and 
the nasal psalmist on his perch. On one side was the mosque, into 
which you could see, with its white walls and cool matted floor, and 
quaint carved pulpit and ornaments, and nobody at prayers. In the 
middle distance rose up the noble towers and battlements of the 
knightly town, with the deep sea-line behind them. 

It really seemed as if everybody was to have a sort of sober 
cheerfulness, and must yield to indolence under this charming 
atmosphere. I went into the courtyard by the sea-shore (where a 
few lazy ships were lying, with no one on board), and found it was 
the prison of the place. The door was as wide open as Westminster 
Hall. Some prisoners, one or two soldiers and functionaries, and 
some prisoners' wives, were lolling under an arcade by a fountain ; 
other criminals were strolling about here and there, their chains 
clinking quite cheerfully : and they and the guards and officials came 
up chatting quite friendly together, and gazed languidly over the 
portfolio, as I was endeavouring to get the likeness of one or two ot 
these comfortable malefactors. One old and wrinkled she-criminal, 
whom I had selected on account of the peculiar hideousness of her 
countenance, covered it up with a dirty cloth, at which there was a 
general roar of laughter among this good-humoured auditory of cut- 
throats, pickpockets, and policemen. The only symptom of a prison 



43Q A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

about the place was a door, across which a couple of sentinels were 
stretched, yawning ; while within lay three freshly-caught pirates, 
chained by the leg. They had committed some murders of a very late 
date, and were awaiting sentence; but their wives were allowed to com- 
municate freely with them : and it seemed to me, that if half-a-dozen 
friends would set them free, and they themselves had energy enough 
to move, the sentinels would be a great deal too lazy to walk after 
them. 

The combined influence of Rhodes and Ramazan, I suppose, 
had taken possession of my friend the Schuster-gesell from Berlin. 
As soon as he received his fee, he cut me at once, and went and 
lay down by a fountain near the port, and ate grapes out of a dirty 
pocket-handkerchief. Other Christian idlers lay near him, dozing, or 
sprawling in the boats, or listlessly munching water-melons. Along 
the coffee-houses of the quay sat hundreds more, with no better 
employment; and the captain of the " Iberia" and his officers, and 
several of the passengers in that famous steamship, were in this 
company, being idle with all their might. Two or three adventurous 
young men went off to see the valley where the dragon was killed ; 
but others, more susceptible of the real influence of the island, I am 
sure would not have moved though we had been told that the 
Colossus himself was taking a walk half a mile off. 



( 431 ) 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE WHITE SQUALL. 

On deck, beneath the awning, 
I dozing lay and yawning ; 
It was the gray of dawning, 

Ere yet the sun arose ; 
And above the funnel's roaring, 
And the fitful wind's deploring, 
I heard the cabin snoring 

With universal nose. 
I could hear the passengers snorting, 
I envied their disporting, 
Vainly I was courting 

The pleasure of a doze. 

So I lay, and wondered why light 
Came not, and watched the twilight 
And the glimmer of the skylight, 

That shot across the deck ; 
And the binnacle pale and steady, 
And the dull glimpse of the dead-eye, 
And the sparks in fiery eddy, 

That whirled from the chimney neck : 
In our jovial floating prison 
There was sleep from fore to mizen, 
And never a star had risen 

The hazy sky to speck. 

Strange company we harboured ; 
We'd a hundred Jews to larboard, 
Unwashed, uncombed, unbarbered, 

Jews black, and brown, and gray ; 
With terror it would seize ye, 
And make your souls uneasy, 
To see those Rabbis greasy, 

Who did nought but scratch and pray : 



432 (I JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

Their dirty children pucking, 
Their dirty saucepans cooking, 
Their dirty fingers hooking 
Their swarming fleas away. 

To starboard Turks and Greeks were, 
Whiskered, and brown their cheeks were, 
Enormous wide their breeks were, 

Their pipes did puff alway ; 
Each on his mat allotted, 
In silence smoked and squatted, 
Whilst round their children trotted, 

In pretty, pleasant play. 
He can't but smile who traces 
The smiles on those brown faces, 
And the pretty prattling graces 

Of those small heathens gay. 

And so the hours kept tolling, 
And through the ocean rolling, 
Went the brave " Iberia " bowling 

Before the break of day 

When a Squall upon a sudden 
Came o'er the waters scudding ; 
And the clouds began to gather, 
And the sea was lashed to lather, 
And the lowering thunder grumbled, 
And the lightning jumped and tumbled, 
And the ship, and all the ocean, 
Woke up in wild commotion. 
Then the wind set up a howling, 
And the poodle-dog a yowling. 
And the cocks began a crowing. 
And the old cow raised a lowing, 
As she heard the tempest blowing ; 
And fowls and geese did cackle, 
And the cordage and the tackle 
Began to shriek and crackle ; 
And the spray dashed o'er the funnels, 
And down the deck in runnels ; 



THE WHITE SQUALL. 433 

And the rushing water soaks all, 
From the seamen in the fo'ksal 
To the stokers, whose black faces 
Peer out of their bed-places ; 
And the captain he was bawling, 
And the sailors pulling, hauling ; 
And the quarter-deck tarpauling 
Was shivered in the squalling ; 
And the passengers awaken, 
Most pitifully shaken ; 
And the steward jumps up, and hastens 
For the necessary basins. 

Then the Greeks they groaned and quivered, 
And they knelt, and moaned, and shivered, 
As the plunging waters met them, 
And splashed and overset them ; 
And they call in their emergence 
Upon countless saints and virgins ; 
And their marrowbones are bended, 
And they think the world is ended. 

And the Turkish women for'ard 
Were frightened and behorror'd ; 
And, shrieking and bewildering, 
The mothers clutched their children ; 
The men sung, " Allah Illah ! 
Mashallah Bismillah ! " 
As the warring waters doused them, 
And splashed them and soused them ; 
And they called upon the Prophet, 
And thought but little of it. 

Then all the fleas in Jewry 
Jumped up and bit like fury ■ 
And the progeny of Jacob 
Did on the main-deck wake up 
(I wot those greasy Rabbins 
Would never pay for cabins) ; 
And each man moaned and jabbered in 
His filthy Jewish gaberdine, 

28 



434 ^ JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

In woe and lamentation, 

And howling consternation. 

And the splashing water drenches 

Their dirty brats and wenches ; 

And they crawl from bales and benches, 

In a hundred thousand stenches. 

This was the White Squall famous 
Which latterly o'ercame us, 
And which all will well remember 
On the 28th September; 
When a Prussian Captain of Lancers 
(Those tight-laced, whiskered prancers) 
Came on the deck astonished, 
By that wild squall admonished, 
And wondering cried, " Potztausend ! 
Wie ist der Sturm jetzt brausend ! " 
And looked at Captain Lewis, 
Who calmly stood and blew his 
Cigar in all the bustle, 
And scorned the tempest's tussle. 
And oft we 've thought thereafter 
How he beat the storm to laughter ; 
For well he knew his vessel 
With that vain wind could wrestle ; 
And when a wreck we thought her 
And doomed ourselves to slaughter, 
How gaily he fought her, 
And through the hubbub brought her, 
And, as the tempest caught her, 
Cried, " George ! some brandy and water ! " 

And when, its force expended, 
The harmless storm was ended, 
And, as the sunrise splendid 

Came blushing o'er the sea ; 
I thought, as day was breaking, 
My little girls were waking, 
And smiling, and making 

A prayer at home for me. 



( 435 ) 



CHAPTER X. 

TELMESSUS. — BEY ROUT. 

There should have been a poet in our company to describe that 
charming little bay of Glaucus, into which we entered on the 26th of 
September, in the first steamboat that ever disturbed its beautiful 
waters. You can't put down in prose that delicious episode of 
natural poetry; it ought to be done in a symphony, full of sweet 
melodies and swelling harmonies ; or sung in a strain of clear crystal 
iambics, such as Milnes knows how to write. A mere map, drawn 
in words, gives the mind no notion of that exquisite nature. What do 
mountains become in type, or rivers in Mr. Vizetelly's best brevier ? 
Here lies the sweet bay, gleaming peaceful in the rosy sunshine : 
green islands dip here and there in its waters : purple mountains swell 
circling round it ; and towards them, rising from the bay, stretches a 
rich green plain, fruitful with herbs and various foliage, in the midst 
of which the white houses twinkle. I can see a little minaret, and 
some spreading palm-trees ; but, beyond these, the description would 
answer as well for Bantry Bay as for Makri. You could write so 
far, nay, much more particularly and grandly, without seeing the 
place at all, and after reading Beaufort's " Caramania," which gives 
you not the least notion of it. 

Suppose the great hydrographer of the Admiralty himself can't 
describe it, who surveyed the place ; suppose Mr. Fellowes, who 
discovered it afterwards — suppose, I say, Sir John Fellowes, Knt., 
can't do it (and I defy any man of imagination to get an impression 
of Telmessus from his book) — can you, vain man, hope to try ? The 
effect of the artist, as I take it, ought to be, to produce upon his 
hearer's mind, by his art, an effect something similar to that produced 
on his own by the sight of the natural object. Only music, or the 
best poetry, can do this. Keats's " Ode to the Grecian Urn " is the 
best description I know of that sweet, old, silent ruin of Telmessus. 
After you have once seen it, the remembrance remains with you, like 
a tune from Mozart, which he seems to have caught out of heaven, 
and which rings sweet harmony in your ears for ever after ! It's a 



436 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

benefit for all after life ! You have but to shut your eyes, and think, 
and recall it, and the delightful vision comes smiling back, to your 
order ! — the divine air — the delicious little pageant, which nature set 
before you on this lucky day. 

Here is the entry made in the note-book on the eventful day : — 
" In the morning steamed into the bay of Glaucus — landed at Makri 
— cheerful old desolate village — theatre by the beautiful sea-shore — 
great fertility, oleanders — a palm-tree in the midst of the village, 
spreading out like a Sultan's aigrette— sculptured caverns, or tombs, 
up the mountain — camels over the bridge." 

Perhaps it is best for a man of fancy to make his own landscape 
out of these materials : to group the couched camels under the plane- 
trees ; the little crowd of wandering, ragged heathens come down to 
the calm water, to behold the nearing steamer ; to fancy a mountain, 
in the sides of which some scores of tombs are rudely carved ; pillars 
and porticos, and Doric entablatures. But it is of the little theatre 
that he must make the most beautiful picture — a charming little 
place of festival, lying out on the shore, and looking over the sweet 
bay and the swelling purple islands. No theatre-goer ever looked 
out on a fairer scene. It encourages poetry, idleness, delicious 
sensual reverie. O Jones ! friend of my heart ! would you not 
like to be a white-robed Greek, lolling languidly on the cool benches 
here, and pouring compliments (in the Ionic dialect) into the rosy 
ears of Nesera ? Instead of Jones, your name should be Ionides ; 
instead of a silk hat, you should wear a chaplet of roses in your hair : 
you would not listen to the choruses they were singing on the stage, 
for the voice of the fair one would be whispering a rendezvous for 
the mesonuktiais horais, and my Ionides would have no ear for aught 
beside. Yonder, in the mountain, they would carve a Doric cave 
temple, to receive your urn when all was done ; and you would be 
accompanied thither by a dirge of the surviving Ionidse. The caves 
of the dead are empty now, however, and their place knows them not 
any more among the festal haunts of the living. But, by way of 
supplying the choric melodies sung here in old time, one of our 
companions mounted on the scene and spouted, 

' ' My name is Norval. " 

On the same day we lay to for a while at another ruined theatre, 
that of Antiphilos. The Oxford men, fresh with recollections of the 



HAUL PACHA. 437 

little-go, bounded away up the hill on which it lies to the ruin, 
measured the steps of the theatre, and calculated the width of the 
scene ; while others, less active, watched them with telescopes from 
the ship's sides, as they plunged in and out of the stones and 
hollows. 

Two days after the scene was quite changed. We were out of sight 
of the classical country, and lay in St. George's Bay, behind a huge 
mountain, upon which St. George fought the dragon, and rescued the 
lovely Lady Sabra, the King of Babylon's daughter. The Turkish 
fleet was lying about us, commanded by that Halil Pacha whose two 
children the two last Sultans murdered. The Crimson flag, with the 
star and crescent, floated at the stern of his ship. Our diplomatist 
put on his uniform and cordons, and paid his Excellency a visit. He 
spoke in rapture, when he returned, of the beauty and order of the 
ship, and the urbanity of the infidel admiral. He sent us bottles of 
ancient Cyprus wine to drink : and the captain of her Majesty's 
ship, " Trump," alongside which we were lying, confirmed that good 
opinion of the Capitan Pasha which the reception of the above 
present led us to entertain, by relating many instances of his friend- 
liness and hospitalities. Captain G said the Turkish ships were 

as well manned, as well kept, and as well manoeuvred, as any vessels 
in any service ; and intimated a desire to command a Turkish seventy- 
four, and a perfect willingness to fight her against a French ship of 
the same size. But I heartily trust he will neither embrace the 
Mahometan opinions, nor be called upon to engage any seventy-four 
whatever. If he do, let us hope he will have his own men to fight 
with. If the crew of the " Trump " were all like the crew of the 
captain's boat, they need fear no two hundred and fifty men out of 
any country, with any Joinville at their head. We were carried on 
shore by this boat. For two years, during which the " Trump " had 
been lying off Beyrout, none of the men but these eight had ever set 
foot on shore. Mustn't it be a happy life ? We were landed at the 
busy quay of Beyrout, flanked by the castle that the fighting old com- 
modore half battered down. 

Along the Beyrout quays civilization flourishes under the flags of 
the consul, which are streaming out over the yellow buildings in the 
clear air. Hither she brings from England her produce of marine- 
stores and woollens, her crockeries, her portable soups, and her bitter 
ale. Hither she has brought politeness, and the last modes from 



438 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

Paris. They were exhibited in the person of a pretty lady, super- 
intending the great French store, and who seeing a stranger sketching 
on the quay, sent forward a man with a chair to accommodate that 
artist, and greeted him with a bow and a smile, such as only can be 
found in France. Then she fell to talking with a young French 
officer with a beard, who was greatly smitten with her. They were 
making love just as they do on the Boulevard. An Arab porter left 
his bales, and the camel he was unloading, to come and look at the 
sketch. Two stumpy, flat-faced Turkish soldiers, in red caps and 
white undresses, peered over the paper. A noble little Lebanonian 
girl, with a deep yellow face, and curly dun-coloured hair, and a blue 
tattooed chin, and for all clothing a little ragged shift of blue cloth, 
stood by like a little statue, holding her urn, and stared with wonder- 
ing brown eyes. How magnificently blue the water was ! — how 
bright the flags and buildings as they shone above it, and the lines of 
the rigging tossing in the bay ! The white crests of the blue waves 
jumped and sparkled like quicksilver ; the shadows were as broad 
and cool as the lights were brilliant and rosy; the battered old 
towers of the commodore looked quite cheerful in the delicious 
atmosphere ; and the mountains beyond were of an amethyst colour. 
The French officer and the lady went on chattering quite happily 
about love, the last new bonnet, or the battle of Isley, or the " Juif 
Errant." How neatly her gown and sleeves fitted her pretty little 
person ! We had not seen a woman for a month, except honest 
Mrs. Flanigan, the stewardess, and the ladies of our party, and the 
tips of the noses of the Constantinople beauties as they passed 
by leering from their yakmacs, waddling and plapping in their odious 
yellow papooshes. 

And this day is to be marked with a second white stone, for 
having given the lucky writer of the present, occasion to behold a 
second beauty. This was a native Syrian damsel, who bore the 
sweet name of Mariam. So it was she stood as two of us (I mention 
the number for fear of scandal) took her picture. 

So it was that the good-natured black cook looked behind her 
young mistress, with a benevolent grin, that only the admirable Leslie 
could paint. 

Mariam was the sister of the young guide whom we hired to 
show us through the town, and to let us be cheated in the purchase 
of gilt scarfs and handkerchiefs, which strangers think proper to buy. 



A PORTRAIT. 



439 



And before the above authentic drawing could be made, many were 
the stratagems the wily artists were obliged to employ, to subdue the 
shyness of the little Mariam. In the first place, she would stand 
behind the door (from which in the darkness her beautiful black eyes 
gleamed out like penny tapers ) ; nor could the entreaties of her 
brother and mamma bring her from that hiding-place. In order to 
conciliate the latter, we began by making a picture of her too — that 
is, not of her, who was an enormous old fat woman in yellow, quiver- 
ing all over with strings of pearls, and necklaces of sequins, and other 
ornaments, the which descended from her neck, and down her ample 
stomacher : we did not depict that big old woman, who would have 
been frightened at an accurate representation of her own enormity ; 
but an ideal being, all grace and beauty, dressed in her costume, 
and still simpering before me in my sketch-book like a lady in a 
book of fashions. 




This portrait was shown to the old woman, who handed it over to 
the black cook, who, grinning, carried it to little Mariam— and the 
result was, that the young creature stepped forward, and submitted ; 
and has come over to Europe as you see. 



44Q A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

A very snug and happy family did this of Mariam's appear to be. 
If you could judge by all the laughter and giggling, by the splendour 
of the women's attire, by the neatness of the little house, prettily 
decorated with arabesque paintings, neat mats, and gay carpets, 
they were a family well to do in the Beyrout world, and lived with as 
much comfort as any Europeans. They had one book ; and, on the 
wall of the principal apartment, a black picture of the Virgin, whose 
name is borne by pretty Mariam. 

The camels and the soldiers, the bazaars and khans, the fountains 
and awnings, which chequer, with such delightful variety of light and 
shade, the alleys and markets of an Oriental town, are to be seen in 
Beyrout in perfection ; and an artist might here employ himself for 
months with advantage and pleasure. A new costume was here 
added to the motley and picturesque assembly of dresses. This was 
the dress of the blue-veiled women from the Lebanon, stalking 
solemnly through the markets, with huge horns, near a yard high, on 
their foreheads. For thousands of years, since the time the Hebrew 
prophets wrote, these horns have so been exalted in the Lebanon. 

At night Captain Lewis gave a splendid ball and supper to the 
" Trump." We had the " Trump's " band to perform the music ; and 
a grand sight it was to see the captain himself enthusiastically leading 
on the drum. Blue lights and rockets were burned from the yards of 
our ship ; which festive signals were answered presently from the 
"Trump," and from another English vessel in the harbour. 

They must have struck the Capitan Pasha with wonder, for he 
sent his secretary on board of us to inquire what the fireworks meant. 
And the worthy Turk had scarcely put his foot on the deck, when he 
found himself seized round the waist by one of the " Trump's " 
officers, and whirling round the deck in a waltz, to his own amaze- 
ment, and the huge delight of the company. His face of wonder 
and gravity, as he went on twirling, could not have been exceeded by 
that of a dancing dervish at Scutari ; and the manner in which he 
managed to enjamber the waltz excited universal applause. 

I forget whether he accommodated himself to European ways so 
much further as to drink champagne at supper-time ; to say that he 
did would be telling tales out of school, and might interfere with the 
future advancement of that jolly dancing Turk. 

We made acquaintance with another of the Sultan's subjects, who, 



A SYRIAN PRINCE. 441 

I fear, will have occasion to doubt of the honour of the English 
nation, after the foul treachery with which he was treated. 

Among the occupiers of the little bazaar watchboxes, vendors of 
embroidered handkerchiefs and other articles of showy Eastern 
haberdashery, was a good-looking, neat young fellow, who spoke 
English very fluently, and was particularly attentive to all the pas- 
sengers on board our ship. This gentleman was not only a pocket- 
handkerchief merchant in the bazaar, but earned a further livelihood 
by letting out mules and donkeys ; and he kept a small lodging-house, 
or inn, for travellers, as we were informed. 

No wonder he spoke good English, and was exceedingly polite 
and well-bred ; for the worthy man had passed some time in England, 
and in the best society too. That humble haberdasher at Beyrout 
had been a lion here, at the very best houses of the great people, 
and had actually* made his appearance at Windsor, where he was 
received as a Syrian Prince, and treated with great hospitality by 
royalty itself. 

I don't know what waggish propensity moved one of the officers 
of the " Trump " to say that there was an equerry of his Royal 
Highness the Prince on board, and to point me out as the dignified 
personage in question. So the Syrian Prince was introduced to the 
royal equerry, and a great many compliments passed between us. I 
even had the audacity to state that on my very last interview with 
my royal master, his Royal Highness had said, " Colonel Titmarsh, 
when you go to Beyrout, you will make special inquiries regarding my 
interesting friend Cogia Hassan." 

Poor Cogia Hassan (I forget whether that was his name, but it is 
as good as another) was overpowered with this royal message ; and 
we had an intimate conversation together, at which the waggish 
officer of the " Trump " assisted with the greatest glee. 

But see the consequences of deceit ! The next day, as we were 
getting under way, who should come on board but my friend the 
Syrian Prince, most eager for a last interview with the Windsor 
equerry ; and he begged me to carry his protestations of unalterable 
fidelity to the gracious consort of her Majesty. Nor was this all. 
Cogia Hassan actually produced a great box of sweetmeats, of which 
he begged my excellency to accept, and a little figure of a doll 
dressed in the costume of Lebanon. Then the punishment of 
imposture began to be felt severely by me. How to accept the 



442 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

poor devil's sweetmeats ? How to refuse them ? And as we know 
that one fib leads to another, so I was obliged to support the first 
falsehood by another; and putting on a dignified air — " Cogia 
Hassan," says I, " I am surprised you don't know the habits of the 
British Court better, and are not aware that our gracious master 
solemnly forbids his servants to accept any sort of backsheesh upon 
our travels." 

So Prince Cogia Hassan went over the side with his chest of 
sweetmeats, but insisted on leaving the doll, which may be worth 
twopence-halfpenny ; of which, and of the costume of the women of 
Lebanon, the following is an accurate likeness :— 







( 443 ) 



CHAPTER XI. 

A DAY AND NIGHT IN SYRIA. 

When, after being for five whole weeks at sea, with a general belief 
that at the end of a few days the marine malady leaves you for good, 
you find that a brisk wind and a heavy rolling swell create exactly 
the same inward effects which they occasioned at the very com- 
mencement of the voyage — you begin to fancy that you are unfairly 
dealt with : and I, for my part, had thought of complaining to the 
company of this atrocious violation of the rules of their prospectus ; 
but we were perpetually coming to anchor in various ports, at which 
intervals of peace and good humour were restored to us. 

On the 3rd of October our cable rushed with a huge rattle into 
the blue sea before Jaffa, at a distance of considerably more than a 
mile off the town, which lay before us very clear, with the flags of the 
consuls flaring in the bright sky, and making a cheerful and hospitable 
show. The houses a great heap of sun-baked stones, surmounted 
here and there by minarets and countless little whitewashed domes ; 
a few date-trees spread out their fan-like heads over these dull-looking 
buildings ; long sands stretched away on either side, with low purple 
hills behind them ; we could see specks of camels crawling over these 
yellow plains ; and those persons who were about to land, had the 
leisure to behold the sea-spray flashing over the sands, and over a 
heap of black rocks which lie before the entry to the town. The 
swell is very great, the passage between the rocks narrow, and the 
danger sometimes considerable. So the guide began to entertain 
the ladies and other passengers in the huge country boat which 
brought us from the steamer, with an agreeable story of a lieutenant 
and eight seamen of one of her Majesty's ships, who were upset, 
dashed to pieces, and drowned upon these rocks, through which two 
men and two boys, with a Very moderate portion of clothing, each 
standing and pulling half an oar — there were but two oars between 
them, and another by way of rudder — were endeavouring to 
guide us. 

When the danger of the rocks and surf was passed, came another 



444 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

danger of the hideous brutes in brown skins and the briefest shirts, 
who came towards the boat, straddling through the water with out- 
stretched arms, grinning and yelling their Arab invitations to mount 
their shoulders. I think these fellows frightened the ladies still more 
than the rocks and the surf; but the poor creatures were obliged 
to submit ; and, trembling, were accommodated somehow upon the 
mahogany backs of these ruffians, carried through the shallows, and 
flung up to a ledge before the city gate, where crowds more of dark 
people were swarming, howling after their fashion. The gentlemen, 
meanwhile, were having arguments about the eternal backsheesh with 
the roaring Arab boatmen ; and I recall with wonder and delight 
especially, the curses and screams of one small and extremely loud- 
lunged fellow, who expressed discontent at receiving a five, instead of 
a six piastre piece. But how is one to know, without possessing the 
language ? Both coins are made of a greasy pewtery sort of tin ; and 
I thought the biggest was the most valuable : but the fellow showed 
a sense of their value, and a disposition seemingly to cut any man's 
throat who did not understand it. Men's throats have been cut for a 
less difference before now. 

Being cast upon the ledge, the first care of our gallantry was to 
look after the ladies, who were scared and astonished by the naked 
savage brutes, who were shouldering the poor things to and fro ; and 
bearing them through these and a dark archway, we came into a 
street crammed with donkeys and their packs and drivers, and tower- 
ing camels with leering eyes looking into the second-floor rooms, and 
huge splay feet, through which mesdames et mesdemoiselles were to be 
conducted. We made a rush at the first open door, and passed 
comfortably under the heels of some horses gathered under the 
arched court, and up a stone staircase, which turned out to be that of 
the Russian consul's house. His people welcomed us most cordially 
to his abode, and the ladies and the luggage (objects of our solicitude) 
were led up many stairs and across several terraces to a most com- 
fortable little room, under a dome of its own, where the represen- 
tative of Russia sat. Women with brown faces and draggle-tailed 
coats and turbans, and wondering eyes, and no stays, and blue beads 
and gold coins hanging round their necks, came to gaze, as they 
passed, upon the fair neat Englishwomen. Blowsy black cooks 
puffing over fires and the strangest pots and pans on the terraces, 
children paddling about in long striped robes, interrupted their sports 



JAFFA. 445 

or labours to come and stare ; and the consul, in his cool domed 
chamber, with a lattice overlooking the sea, with clean mats, and 
pictures of the Emperor, the Virgin, and St. George, received the 
strangers with smiling courtesies, regaling the ladies with pomegranates 
and sugar, the gentlemen with pipes of tobacco, whereof the fragrant 
tubes were three yards long. 

The Russian amenities concluded, we left the ladies still under 
the comfortable, cool dome of the Russian consulate, and went to 
see our own representative. The streets of the little town are 
neither agreeable to horse nor foot travellers. Many of the streets are 
mere flights of rough steps, leading abruptly into private houses : you 
pass under archways and passages numberless; a steep, dirty laby- 
rinth of stone-vaulted stables and sheds occupies the ground-floor of 
the habitations ; and you pass from flat to flat of the terraces ; at 
various irregular corners of which, little chambers, with little private 
domes, are erected, and the people live seemingly as much upon the 
terrace as in the room. 

We found the English consul in a queer little arched chamber, 
with a strange old picture of the King's arms to decorate one side of 
it : and here the consul, a demure old man, dressed in red flowing 
robes, with a feeble janissary bearing a shabby tin-mounted staff, or 
mace, to denote his office, received such of our nation as came to 
him for hospitality. He distributed pipes and coffee to all and every 
one ; he made us a present of his house and all his beds for the night, 
and went himself to lie quietly on the terrace ; and for all this 
hospitality he declined to receive any reward from us, and said he 
was but doing his duty in taking us in. This worthy man, I thought, 
must doubtless be very well paid by our Government for making 
such sacrifices ; but it appears that he does not get one single 
farthing, and that the greater number of our Levant consuls are paid 
at a similar rate of easy remuneration. If we have bad consular 
agents, have we a right to complain ? If the worthy gentlemen cheat 
occasionally, can we reasonably be angry ? But in travelling through 
these countries, English people, who don't take into consideration the 
miserable poverty and scanty resources of their country, and are apt 
to brag and be proud of it, have their vanity hurt by seeing the 
representatives of every nation but their own well and decently main- 
tained, and feel ashamed at sitting down under the shabby protection 
of our mean consular flag. 



446 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

The active young men of our party had been on shore long 
before us, and seized upon all the available horses in the town ; but 
we relied upon a letter from Halil Pacha, enjoining all governors and 
pashas to help us in all ways : and hearing we were the bearers of 
this document, the cadi and vice-governor of Jaffa came to wait 
upon the head of our party ; declared that it was his delight and 
honour to set eyes upon us ; that he would do everything in the 
world to serve us ; that there were no horses, unluckily, but he would 
send and get some in three hours ; and so left us with a world of 
grinning bows and many choice compliments from one side to the 
other, which came to each filtered through an obsequious interpreter. 
But hours passed, and the clatter of horses' hoofs was not heard. We 
had our dinner of eggs and flaps of bread, and the sunset gun fired : 
we had our pipes and coffee again, and the night fell. Is this man 
throwing dirt upon us ? we began to think. Is he laughing at our 
beards, and are our mothers' graves ill-treated by this smiling, 
swindling cadi ? We determined to go and seek in his own den this 
shuffling dispenser of infidel justice. This time we would be no more 
bamboozled by compliments ; but we would use the language of stern 
expostulation, and, being roused, would let the rascal hear the roar 
of the indignant British lion ; so we rose up in our wrath. The 
poor consul got a lamp for us with a bit of wax-candle, such as I 
wonder his means could afford ; the shabby janissary marched ahead 
with his tin mace ; the two laquais-de-place, that two of our company 
had hired, stepped forward, each with an old sabre, and we went 
clattering and stumbling down the streets of the town, in order to 
seize upon this cadi in his own divan. I was glad, for my part 
(though outwardly majestic and indignant in demeanour), that the 
horses had not come, and that we had a chance of seeing this little 
queer glimpse of Oriental life, which the magistrate's faithlessness 
procured for us. 

As piety forbids the Turks to eat during the weary daylight hours 
of the Ramazan, they spend their time profitably in sleeping until 
the welcome sunset, when the town wakens : all the lanterns are 
lighted up ; all the pipes begin to puff, and the narghile's to bubble ; 
all the sour-milk-and-sherbet-men begin to yell cut the excellence of 
their wares ; all the frying-pans in the little dirty cookshops begin to 
friz, and the pots to send forth a steam : and through this dingy, 
ragged, bustling, beggarly, cheerful scene, we began now to march 



THE CADI'S DIVAN. 447 

towards the Bow Street of Jaffa. We bustled through a crowded 
naiTOw archway which led to the cadi's police-office, entered the little 
room, atrociously perfumed with musk, and passing by the rail-board, 
where the common sort stood, mounted the stage upon which his 
worship and friends sat, and squatted down on the divans in stern 
and silent dignity. His honour ordered us coffee, his countenance 
evidently showing considerable alarm. A black slave, whose duty 
seemed to be to prepare this beverage in a side-room with a furnace, 
prepared for each of us about a teaspoonful of the liquor : his 
worship's clerk, I presume, a tall Turk of a noble aspect, presented it 
to us ; and having lapped up the little modicum of drink, the British 
lion began to speak. 

All the other travellers (said the lion with perfect reason) have 
good horses and are gone ; the Russians have got horses, the 
Spaniards have horses, the English have horses, but we, we vizirs 
in our country, coming with letters of Halil Pacha, are laughed at, 
spit upon ! Are Halil Pacha's letters dirt, that you attend to them 
in this way ? Are British lions dogs that you treat them so ? — and 
so on. This speech with many variations was made on our side for a 
quarter of an hour ; and we finally swore that unless the horses were 
forthcoming we would write to Halil Pacha the next morning, and 
to his Excellency the English Minister at the Sublime Porte. Then 
you should have heard the chorus of Turks in reply : a dozen voices 
rose up from the divan, shouting, screaming, ejaculating, expecto- 
rating (the Arabic spoken language seems to require a great employ- 
ment of the two latter oratorical methods), and uttering what the 
meek interpreter did not translate to us, but what I dare say were by 
no means complimentary phrases towards us and our nation. Finally, 
the palaver concluded by the cadi declaring that by the will of heaven 
horses should be forthcoming at three o'clock in the morning ; and 
that if not, why, then, we might write to Halil Pacha. 

This posed us, and we rose up and haughtily took leave. I 
should like to know that fellow's real opinion of us lions very much : 
and especially to have had the translation of the speeches of a huge- 
breeched turbaned roaring infidel, who looked and spoke as if he 
would have liked to fling us all into the sea, which was hoarsely 
murmuring under our windows an accompaniment to the concert 
within. 

We then marched through the bazaars, that were lofty and grim, 



448 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

and pretty full of people. In a desolate broken building, some 
hundreds of children were playing and singing ; in many corners sat 
parties over their water-pipes, one of whom every now and then 
would begin twanging out a most queer chant ; others there were 
playing at casino — a crowd squatted around the squalling gamblers, 
and talking and looking on with eager interest. In one place of the 
bazaar we found a hundred people at least listening to a story-teller, 
who delivered his tale with excellent action, voice, and volubility : in 
another they were playing a sort of thimblerig with coffee-cups, all 
intent upon the game, and the player himself very wild lest one of 
our party, who had discovered where the pea lay, should tell the 
company. The devotion and energy with which all these pastimes 
were pursued, struck me as much as anything. These people have 
been playing thimblerig and casino ; that story-teller has been 
shouting his tale of Antar for forty years ; and they are just as 
happy with this amusement now as when first they tried it. Is there 
no ennui in the Eastern countries, and are blue-devils not allowed to 
go abroad there ? 

From the bazaars we went to see the house of Mustapha, said to 
be the best house and the greatest man of Jaffa. But the great man 
had absconded suddenly, and had fled into Egypt. The Sultan had 
made a demand upon him for sixteen thousand purses, 80,000/. — 
Mustapha retired — the Sultan pounced down upon his house, and his 
goods, his horses and his mules. His harem was desolate. Mr. Milnes 
could have written six affecting poems, had he been with us, on the 
dark loneliness of that violated sanctuary. We passed from hall to 
hall, terrace to terrace — a few fellows were slumbering on the naked 
floors, and scarce turned as we went by them. We entered 
Mustapha's particular divan — there was the raised floor, but no 
bearded friends squatting away the night of Ramazan; there was 
the little coffee furnace, but where was the slave and the coffee and 
the glowing embers of the pipes ? Mustapha's favourite passages 
from the Koran were still painted up on the walls, but nobody was 
the wiser for them. We walked over a sleeping negro, and opened 
the windows which looked into his gardens. The horses and donkeys, 
the camels and mules were picketed there below, but where is the 
said Mustapha? From the frying-pan of the Porte, has he not 
fallen into the fire of Mehemet Ali ? And which is best, to broil or 
to fry ? If it be but to read the " Arabian Nights " again on getting 



A NIGHT IN SYRIA. 449 

Jiome, it is good to have made this little voyage and seen these 
strange places and faces. 

Then we went out through the arched lowering gateway of the 
town into the plain beyond, and that was another famous and brilliant 
scene of the " Arabian Nights." The heaven shone with a marvellous 
brilliancy — the plain disappeared far in the haze — the towers and 
battlements of the town rose black against the sky — old outlandish 
trees rose up here and there — clumps of camels were couched in the 
rare herbage — dogs were baying about — groups of men lay sleeping 
under their haicks round about — round about the tall gates many 
lights were twinkling — and they brought us water-pipes and sherbet 
— and we wondered to think that London was only three weeks off. 

Then came the night at the consul's. The poor demure old 
gentleman brought out his mattresses ; and the ladies sleeping round 
on the divans, we lay down quite happy ; and I for my part intended 
to make as delightful dreams as Alnaschar ; but — lo, the delicate 
mosquito sounded his horn : the active flea jumped up, and came to 
feast on Christian flesh (the Eastern flea bites more bitterly than the 
most savage bug in Christendom), and the bug — oh, the accursed ! 
Why was he made ? What duty has that infamous ruffian to perform 
in the world, save to make people wretched ? Only Bulwer in his 
most pathetic style could describe the miseries of that night — the 
moaning, the groaning, the cursing, the tumbling, the blistering, the 
infamous despair and degradation ! I heard all the cocks in Jaffa 
crow ; the children crying, and the mothers hushing them ; the 
donkeys braying fitfully in the moonlight ; at last, I heard the clatter 
of hoofs below, and the hailing of men. It was three o'clock, the 
horses were actually come ; nay, there were camels likewise ; asses 
and mules, pack-saddles and drivers, all bustling together under the 
moonlight in the cheerful street — and the first night in Syria was 
over. 



99 



45o A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO, 



CHAPTER XII. 

FROM JAFFA TO JERUSALEM. 

It took an hour or more to get our little caravan into marching order, 
to accommodate all the packs to the horses, the horses to the riders ; 
to see the ladies comfortably placed in their litter, with a sleek and 
large black mule fore and aft, a groom to each mule, and a tall and 
exceedingly good-natured and mahogany-coloured infidel to walk by 
the side of the carriage, to balance it as it swayed to and fro, and to 
offer his back as a step to the inmates whenever they were minded 
to ascend or alight. These three fellows, fasting through the 
Ramazan, and over as rough a road, for the greater part, as ever 
shook mortal bones, performed their fourteen hours' walk of near 
forty miles with the most admirable courage, alacrity, and good 
humour. They once or twice drank water on the march, and so far 
infringed the rule ; but they refused all bread or edible refreshment 
offered to them, and tugged on with an energy that the best camel, 
and I am sure the best Christian, might envy. What a lesson of 
good-humoured endurance it was to certain Pall Mall Sardanapaluses, 
who grumble if club sofa cushions are not soft enough ! 

If I could write sonnets at leisure, I would like to chronicle in 
fourteen lines my sensations on finding myself on a high Turkish 
saddle, with a pair of fire-shovel stirrups and worsted reins, red 
padded saddle-cloth, and innumerable tags, fringes, glass-beads, ends 
of rope, to decorate the harness of the horse, the gallant steed on 
which I was about to gallop into Syrian life. What a figure we cut 
in the moonlight, and how they would have stared in the Strand ! 
Ay, or in Leicestershire, where I warrant such a horse and rider are 
not often visible ! The shovel stirrups are deucedly short ; the 
clumsy leathers cut the shins of some equestrians abominably ; you 
sit over your horse as it were on a tower, from which the descent 
would be very easy, but for the big peak of the saddle. A good 
way for the inexperienced is to put a stick or umbrella across the 
saddle peak again, so that it is next to impossible to go over your 
horse's neck. I found this a vast comfort in going down the hills, 



A CAVALCADE. 451 

and recommend it conscientiously to other dear simple brethren of 
the city. 

Peaceful men, we did not ornament our girdles with pistols, 
yataghans, &c, such as some pilgrims appeared to bristle all over 
with ; and as a lesson to such rash people, a story may be told which 
was narrated to us at Jerusalem, and carries a wholesome moral. 
The Honourable Hoggin Armer, who was lately travelling in the 
East, wore about his stomach two brace of pistols, of such exquisite 
finish and make, that a Sheikh, in the Jericho country, robbed him 
merely for the sake of the pistols. I don't know whether he has told 
the story to his friends at home. 

Another story about Sheikhs may here be told apropos. That 
celebrated Irish Peer, Lord Oldgent (who was distinguished in the 
Buckinghamshire Dragoons), having paid a sort of black mail to the 
Sheikh of Jericho country, was suddenly set upon by another Sheikh, 
who claimed to be the real Jerichonian governor ; and these twins 
quarrelled over the body of Lord Oldgent, as the widows for the 
innocent baby before Solomon. There was enough for both — but 
these digressions are interminable. 

The party got under way at near four o'clock : the ladies in 
the litter, the French femme-de-chambre manfully caracoling on a 
gray horse ; the cavaliers, like your humble servant, on their high 
saddles ; the domestics, flunkies, guides, and grooms, on all sorts 
of animals, — some fourteen in all. Add to these, two most grave and 
stately Arabs in white beards, white turbans, white haicks and raiments ; 
sabres curling round their military thighs, and immense long guns at 
their backs. More venerable warriors I never saw ; they went by the 
side of the litter soberly prancing. When we emerged from the 
steep clattering streets of the city into the gray plains, lighted by 
the moon and starlight, these militaries rode onward, leading the 
way through the huge avenues of strange diabolical-looking pricklv 
pears (plants that look as if they had grown in Tartarus), by which 
the first mile or two of route from the city is bounded ; and as the 
dawn arose before us, exhibiting first a streak of gray, then of green, 
then of red in the sky, it was fine to see these martial figures defined 
against the rising light. The sight of that little cavalcade, and of 
the nature around it, will always remain with me, I think, as one of 
the freshest and most delightful sensations I have enjoyed since 
the day I first saw Calais pier. It was full day when they gave 



452 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

their horses a drink at a large pretty Oriental fountain, and then 
presently we entered the open plain — the famous plain of Sharon — ■ 
so fruitful in roses once, now hardly cultivated, but always beautiful 
and noble. 

Here presently, in the distance, Ave saw another cavalcade 
pricking over the plain. Our two white warriors spread to the right 
and left, and galloped to reconnoitre. We, too, put our steeds to the 
canter, and handling our umbrellas as Richard did his lance against 
Saladin, went undaunted to challenge this caravan. The fact is, we 
could distinguish that it was formed of the party of our pious friends 
the Poles, and we hailed them with cheerful shouting, and presently 
the two caravans joined company, and scoured the plain at the rate 
of near four miles per hour. The horse-master, a courier of this 
company, rode three miles for our one. He was a broken-nosed 
Arab, with pistols, a sabre, a fusee, a yellow Damascus cloth 
flapping over his head, and his nose ornamented with diachylon. 
He rode a hog-necked gray Arab, bristling over with harness, and 
jumped, and whirled, and reared, and halted, to the admiration 
of all. 

Scarce had the diachylonian Arab finished his evolutions, when 
lo ! yet another cloud of dust was seen, and another party of armed 
and glittering horsemen appeared. They, too, were led by an Arab, 
who was followed by two janissaries, with silver maces shining in 
the sun. 'Twas the party of the new American Consul-General of 
Syria and Jerusalem, hastening to that city, with the inferior consuls 
of Ramleh and Jaffa to escort him.' He expects to see the Millen- 
nium in three years, and has accepted the office of consul at 
Jerusalem, so as to be on the spot in readiness. 

When the diachylon Arab saw the American Arab, he straight- 
way galloped his steed towards him, took his pipe, which he delivered 
at his adversary in guise of a jereed, and galloped round and round, 
and in and out, and there and back again, as in a play of war. The 
American replied in a similar playful ferocity — the two warriors 
made a little tournament for us there on the plains before Jaffa, in 
the which diachylon, being a little worsted, challenged his adversary 
to a race, and fled away on his gray, the American following on his 
bay. Here poor sticking-plaster was again worsted, the Yankee 
contemptuously riding round him, and then declining further 
exercise. 



RAMLEH. 453 

What more could mortal man want ? A troop of knights and 
paladins could have done no more. In no page of Walter Scott 
have I read a scene more fair and sparkling. The sober warriors of 
our escort did not join in the gambols of the young men. There 
they rode soberly, in their white turbans, by their ladies' litter, their 
long guns rising up behind them. 

There was no lack of company along the road : donkeys 
numberless, camels by twos and threes ; now a mule-driver, trudging 
along the road, chanting a most queer melody ; now a lady, in white 
veil, black mask, and yellow papooshes, bestriding her ass, and 
followed by her husband, — met us on the way; and most people 
gave a salutation. Presently we saw Ramleh, in a smoking mist, on 
the plain before us, flanked to the right by a tall lonely tower, that 
might have held the bells of some mouther of Caen or Evreux. As 
we entered, about three hours and a half after starting, among the 
white domes and stone houses of the little town, we passed the place 
of tombs. Two women were sitting on one of them, — the one 
bending her head towards the stone, and rocking to and fro, and 
moaning out a very sweet, pitiful lamentation. The American consul 
invited us to breakfast at the house of his subaltern, the hospitable 
one-eyed Armenian, who represents the United States at Jaffa. The 
stars and stripes were flaunting over his terraces, to which we 
ascended, leaving our horses to the care of a multitude of roaring, 
ragged Arabs beneath, who took charge of and fed the animals, 
though I can't say in the least why ; but, in the same way as getting 
off my horse on entering Jerusalem, I gave the rein into the hand of 
the first person near me, and have never heard of the worthy brute 
since. At the American consul's we were served first with rice soup 
in pishpash, flavoured with cinnamon and spice ; then with boiled 
mutton, then with stewed ditto and tomatoes ; then with fowls 
swimming in grease ; then with brown ragouts belaboured with 
onions ; then with a smoking pilaff of rice : several of which dishes 
I can pronounce to be of excellent material and flavour. When 
the gentry had concluded this repast, it was handed to a side- 
table, where the commonalty speedily discussed it. We left them 
licking their fingers as we hastened away upon the second part of 
the ride. 

And as we quitted Ramleh, the scenery lost that sweet and 
peaceful look which characterizes the pretty plain we had traversed ; 



454 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

and the sun, too, rising in the heaven, dissipated all those fresh, 
beautiful tints in which God's world is clothed of early morning, and 
which city people have so seldom the chance of beholding. The 
plain over which we rode looked yellow and gloomy ; the cultivation 
little or none ; the land across the roadside fringed, for the most part, 
with straggling wild carrot plants; a patch of green only here and 
there. We passed several herds of lean, small, well-conditioned 
cattle : many flocks of black goats, tended now and then by a ragged 
negro shepherd, his long gun slung over his back, his hand over his 
eyes to shade them as he stared at our little cavalcade. Most of the 
half-naked countryfolks we met, had this dismal appendage to Eastern 
rustic life ; and the weapon could hardly be one of mere defence, for, 
beyond the faded skull-cap, or tattered coat of blue or dirty white, 
the brawny, brown-chested, solemn -looking fellows had nothing 
seemingly to guard. As before, there was no lack of travellers on 
the road : more donkeys trotted by, looking sleek and strong ; 
camels singly and by pairs, laden with a little humble ragged mer- 
chandise, on their way between the two towns. About noon we 
halted eagerly at a short distance from an Arab village and well, 
where all were glad of a drink of fresh water. A village of beavers, 
or a colony of ants, make habitations not unlike these dismal huts 
piled together on the plain here. There were no single huts along 
the whole line of road ; poor and wretched as they are, the Fellahs 
huddle all together for protection from the other thieves their 
neighbours. The government (which we restored to them) has no 
power to protect them, and is only strong enough to rob them. The 
women, with their long blue gowns and ragged veils, came to and fro 
with pitchers on their heads. Rebecca had such an one when she 
brought drink to the lieutenant of Abraham. The boys came staring 
round, bawling after us with their fathers for the inevitable backsheesh. 
The village dogs barked round the flocks, as they were driven to 
water or pasture. 

We saw a gloomy, not very lofty-looking ridge of hills in front of 
us; the highest of which the guide pointing out to us, told us that from 
it we should see Jerusalem. It looked very near, and we all set up a 
trot of enthusiasm to get into this hill country. 

But that burst of enthusiasm (it may have carried us nearly a 
quarter of a mile in three minutes) was soon destined to be checked 
by the disagreeable nature of the country we had to traverse. Before 



ROAD-SIDE SKETCHES. 455 

we got to the real mountain district, we were in a manner prepared 
for it, by the mounting and descent of several lonely outlying hills, 
up and down which our rough stony track wound. Then we entered 
the hill district, and our path lay through the clattering bed of an 
ancient stream, whose brawling waters have rolled away into the past, 
along with the fierce and turbulent race who once inhabited these 
savage hills. There may have been cultivation here two thousand 
years ago. The mountains, or huge stony mounds environing this 
rough path, have level ridges all the way up to their summits ; on 
these parallel ledges there is still some verdure and soil : when water 
flowed here, and the country was thronged with that extraordinary 
population, which, according to the Sacred Histories, was crowded 
into the region, these mountain steps may have been gardens and 
vineyards, such as we see now thriving along the hills of the Rhine. 
Now the district is quite deserted, and you ride among what seem to 
be so many petrified waterfalls. We saw no animals moving among the 
stony brakes ; scarcely even a dozen little birds in the whole course 
of the ride. The sparrows are all at Jerusalem, among the house- 
tops, where their ceaseless chirping and twittering forms the most 
cheerful sound of the place. 

The company of Poles, the company of Oxford men, and the little 
American army, travelled too quick for our caravan, which was made 
to follow the slow progress of the ladies' litter, and we had to make 
the journey through the mountains in a very small number. Not one of 
our party had a single weapon more dreadful than an umbrella : and 
a couple of Arabs, wickedly inclined, might have brought us all to the 
halt, and rifled every carpet-bag and pocket belonging to us. Nor 
can I say that we journeyed without certain qualms of fear. When 
swarthy fellows, with girdles full of pistols and yataghans, passed us 
without unslinging their long guns : — when scowling camel-riders, 
with awful long bending lances, decorated with tufts of rags, or savage 
plumes of scarlet feathers, went by without molestation, I think we 
were rather glad that they did not stop and parley : for, after all, a 
British lion with an umbrella is no match for an Arab with his 
infernal long gun. What, too, would have become of our women ? 
So we tried to think that it was entirely out of anxiety for them that 
we were inclined to push on. 

There is a shady resting-place and village in the midst of the 
mountain district where the • travellers are accustomed to halt for an 



456 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

hour's repose and refreshment ; and the other caravans were just 
quitting this spot, having enjoyed its cool shades and waters, when 
we came up. Should we stop ? Regard for the ladies (of course no 
other earthly consideration) made us say, " No ! " What admirable 
self-denial and chivalrous devotion ! So our poor devils of mules 
und horses got no rest and no water, our panting litter-men no 
breathing time, and we staggered desperately after the procession 
ahead of us. It wound up the mountain, in front of us : the Poles 
with their guns and attendants, the American with his janissaries ; 
fifty or sixty all riding slowly like the procession in " Bluebeard." 

But alas, they headed us very soon ; when we got up the weary 
hill they were all out of sight. Perhaps thoughts of Fleet Street did 
cross the minds of some of us then, and a vague desire to see a few 
policemen. The district now seemed peopled, and with an ugly race. 
Savage personages peered at us out of huts, and grim holes in the 
rocks. The mules began to loiter most abominably — water the 
muleteers must have — and, behold, we came to a pleasant-looking 
village of trees standing on a hill ; children were shaking figs from 
the trees — women were going about — before us was the mosque of a 
holy man — the village, looking like a collection of little forts, rose up 
on the hill to our right, -with a long view of the fields and gardens 
stretching from it, and camels arriving with their burdens. Here we 
must stop ; Paolo, the chief servant, knew the Sheikh of the village- 
he very good man — give him water and supper — water very good 
here — in fact we began to think of the propriety of halting here for 
the night, and making our entry into Jerusalem on the next day. 

A man on a handsome horse dressed in red came prancing up to 
us, looking hard at the ladies in the litter, and passed away. Then 
two others sauntered up, one handsome, and dressed in red too, and 
he stared into the litter without ceremony, began to play with a little 
dog that lay there, asked if we were Inglees, and was answered by 
me in the affirmative. Paolo had brought the water, the most 
delicious draught in the world. The gentlefolks had had some, 
the poor muleteers were longing for it. The French maid, the 
courageous Victoire (never since the days of Joan of Arc has there 
surely been a more gallant and virtuous female of France) refused 
the drink ; when suddenly a servant of the party scampers up to his 
master and says : " Abou Gosh says the ladies must get out and show 
themselves to the women of the village I " 



NIGHT BEFORE JERUSALEM. 457 

It was Abou Gosh himself, the redoubted robber Sheikh about 
whom we had been laughing and crying " Wolf ! " all day. Never 
was seen such a skurry ! " March ! " was the instant order given. 
When Victoire heard who it was and the message, you should have 
seen how she changed countenance ; trembling for her virtue in the 
ferocious clutches of a Gosh. " Un verre d'eau pour l'amour de 
Dieu ! " gasped she, and was ready to faint on her saddle. " Ne 
buvez plus, Victoire ! " screamed a little fellow of our party. " Push 
on, push on ! " cried one and all. " What's the matter ! " exclaimed 
the ladies in the litter, as they saw themselves suddenly jogging on 
again. But we took care not to tell them what had been the designs 
of the redoubtable Abou Gosh. Away then we went — Victoire was 
saved — and her mistresses rescued from dangers they knew not of, 
until they were a long way out of the village. 

Did he intend insult or good will ? Did Victoire escape the 
odious chance of becoming Madame Abou Gosh ? Or did the 
mountain chief simply propose to be hospitable after his fashion? 
I think the latter was his desire ; if the former had been his wish, a 
half-dozen $f his long guns could have been up with us in a minute, 
and had all our party at their mercy. But now, for the sake of the 
mere excitement, the incident was, I am sorry to say, rather a 
pleasant one Than otherwise : especially for a traveller who is in the 
happy condition of being able to sing before robbers, as is the case 
with the writer of the present. 

A little way out of the land of Goshen' we came upon a long 
stretch of gardens and vineyards, slanting towards the setting sun, 
which illuminated numberless golden clusters of the most delicious 
grapes, of which we stopped and partook. Such grapes were never 
before tasted ; water so fresh as that which a countryman fetched for 
us from a well never sluiced parched throats before. It was the 
ride, the sun, and above all Abou Gosh, who made that refreshment 
so sweet, and hereby I offer him my best thanks. Presently, in the 
midst of a most diabolical ravine, down which our horses went 
sliding, we heard the evening gun ; it was fired from Jerusalem. The 
twilight is brief in this country, and in a few minutes the landscape 
was gray round about us, and the sky lighted up by a hundred 
thousand stars, which made the night beautiful. 

Under this superb canopy we rode for a couple of hours to our 



458 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

journey's end. The mountains round about us dark, lonely, and sad ; 
the landscape as we saw it at night (it is not more cheerful in the day- 
time), the most solemn and forlorn I have ever seen. The feelings of 
almost terror with which, riding through the night, we approached this 
awful place, the centre of the world's past and future history, have no 
need to be noted down here. The recollection of those sensations 
must remain with a man as long as his memory lasts ; and he should 
think of them as often 2 perhaps, as he should talk of them little. 



( 459 ) 



CHAPTER XIII. 

JERUSALEM. 

The ladies of our party found excellent quarters in readiness for 
them at the Greek convent in the city ; where airy rooms, and 
plentiful meals, and wines and sweetmeats delicate and abundant, 
were provided to cheer them after the fatigues of their journey. 
I don't know whether the worthy fathers of the convent share in the 
good things which they lavish on their guests ; but they look as if 
they do. Those whom we saw bore every sign of easy conscience 
and good living ; there were a pair of strong, rosy, greasy, lazy lay- 
brothers, dawdling in the sun on the convent terrace, or peering over 
the parapet into the street below, whose looks gave one a notion 
of anything but asceticism. 

In the principal room of the strangers' house (the lay traveller is 
not admitted to dwell in the sacred interior of the convent), and over 
the building, the Russian double-headed eagle is displayed. The 
place is under the patronage of the Emperor Nicholas : an Imperial 
Prince has stayed in these rooms : the Russian consul performs a 
great part in the city ; and a considerable annual stipend is given by 
the Emperor towards the maintenance of the great establishment in 
Jerusalem. The Great Chapel of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre 
is by far the richest, in point of furniture, of all the places of worship 
under that roof. We were in Russia, when we came to visit our 
friends here ; under the protection of the Father of the Church and 
the Imperial Eagle ! This butcher and tyrant, who sits on his throne 
only through the crime of those who held it before him — every step 
in whose pedigree is stained by some horrible mark of murder, parri- 
cide, adultery — this padded and whiskered pontiff — who rules in his 
jack -boots over a system of spies and soldiers, of deceit, ignorance, 
dissoluteness, and brute force, such as surely the history of the world 
never told of before — has a tender interest in the welfare of his 
spiritual children : in the Eastern Church ranks after divinity, and is 
worshipped by millions of men, A pious exemplar of Christianity 
truly ! and of the condition to which its union with politics has 



460 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

brought it ! Think of the rank to which he pretends, and gravely 
believes that he possesses, no doubt ! — think of those who assumed 
the same ultra-sacred character before him ! — and then of the Bible 
and the Founder of the Religion, of which the Emperor assumes to 
be the chief priest and defender ! 

We had some Poles of our party ; but these poor fellows went to 
the Latin convent, declining to worship after the Emperor's fashion. 
The next night after our arrival, two of them passed in the Sepulchre. 
There we saw them, more than once on subsequent visits, kneeling 
in the Latin Church before the pictures, or marching solemnly with 
candles in processions, or lying flat on the stones, or passionately 
kissing the spots which their traditions have consecrated as the 
authentic places of the Saviour's sufferings. More honest or more 
civilized, or from opposition, the Latin fathers have long given up 
and disowned the disgusting mummery of the Eastern Fire — which 
lie the Greeks continue annually to tell. 

Their travellers' house and convent, though large and com- 
modious, are of a much poorer and shabbier condition than those 
of the Greeks. Both make believe not to take money ; but the 
traveller is expected to pay in each. The Latin fathers enlarge their 
means by a little harmless trade in beads and crosses, and mother-of- 
pearl shells, on which figures of saints are engraved ; and which they 
purchase from the manufacturers, and vend at a small profit. The 
English, until of late, used to be quartered in these sham inns ; but 
last year two or three Maltese took houses for the reception of 
tourists, who can now be accommodated with cleanly and comfortable 
board, at a rate not too heavy for most pockets. 

To one of these we went very gladly ; giving our horses the 
bridle at the door, which went off of their own will to their stables, 
through the dark inextricable labyrinths of streets, archways, and 
alleys, which we had threaded after leaving the main street from the 
Jaffa Gate. There, there was still some life. Numbers of persons 
were collected at their doors, or smoking before the dingy coffee- 
houses, where singing and story-telling were going on ; but out of this 
great street everything was silent, and no sign of a light from the 
windows of the low houses which we passed. 

We ascended from a lower floor up to a terrace, on which were 
several little domed chambers, or pavilions. From this terrace, 



JEWISH PILGRIMS. 461 

whence we looked in the morning, a great part of the city spread 
before us : — white domes upon domes, and terraces of the same 
character as our own. Here and there, from among these white- 
washed mounds round about, a minaret rose, or a rare date-tree ; 
but the chief part of the vegetation near was that odious tree the 
prickly pear, — one huge green wart growing out of another, armed 
with spikes, as inhospitable as the aloe, without shelter or beauty. 
To the right the Mosque of Omar rose ; the rising sun behind 
it. Yonder steep tortuous lane before us, flanked by ruined walls on 
either side, has borne, time out of mind, the title of Via Dolorosa ; 
and tradition has fixed the spots where the Saviour rested, bearing 
his cross to Calvary. But of the mountain, rising immediately in 
front of us, a few gray olive-trees speckling the yellow side here and 
there, there can be no question. That is the Mount of Olives. 
Bethany lies beyond it. The most sacred eyes that ever looked on 
this world have gazed on those ridges : it was there He used to walk 
and teach. With shame and humility one looks towards the spot 
where that inexpressible Love and Benevolence lived and breathed ; 
where the great yearning heart of the Saviour interceded for all our 
race ; and whence the bigots and traitors of his day led him away to 
kill him ! 

That company of Jews whom we had brought with us from 
Constantinople, and who had cursed every delay on the route, not 
from impatience to view the Holy City, but from rage at being 
obliged to purchase dear provisions for their maintenance on ship- 
board, made what bargains they best could at Jaffa, and journeyed to 
the Valley of Jehoshaphat at the cheapest rate. We saw the tall form 
of the old Polish Patriarch, venerable in filth, stalking among the 
stinking ruins of the Jewish quarter. The sly old Rabbi, in the 
greasy folding hat, who would not pay to shelter his children from 
the storm off Beyrout, greeted us in the bazaars ; the younger Rabbis 
were furbished up with some smartness. We met them on Sunday at 
the kind of promenade by the walls of the Bethlehem Gate ; they 
were in company of some red-bearded co-religionists, smartly attired 
in Eastern raiment; but their voice was the voice of the Jews of 
Berlin, and of course as we passed they were talking about so many 
hundert thaler. You may track one of the people, and be sure to 
hear mention of that silver calf that they worship. 



462 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

The English mission has been very unsuccessful with these 
religionists. I don't believe the Episcopal apparatus — the chaplains, 
and the colleges, and the beadles — have succeeded in converting a 
dozen of them ; and a sort of martyrdom is in store for the luckless 
Hebrew at Jerusalem who shall secede from his faith. Their old com- 
munity spurn them with horror ; and I heard of the case of one unfor- 
tunate man, whose wife, in spite of her husband's change of creed, being 
resolved, like a true woman, to cleave to him, was spirited away from 
him in his absence ; was kept in privacy in the city, in spite of all 
exertions of the mission, of the consul and the bishop, and the 
chaplains and the beadles ; was passed away from Jerusalem to 
IJeyrout, and thence to Constantinople ; and from Constantinople 
was whisked off into the Russian territories, where she still pines 
after her husband. May that unhappy convert find consolation away 
from her. I could not help thinking, as my informant, an excellent 
and accomplished gentleman of the mission, told me the story, that the 
Jews had done only what the Christians do under the same circum- 
stances. The woman was the daughter of a most learned Rabbi, as 
I gathered. Suppose a daughter of the Rabbi of Exeter, or 
Canterbury, were to marry a man who turned Jew, would not her 
Right Reverend Father be justified in taking her out of the power of 
a person likely to hurl her soul to perdition ? These poor converts 
should surely be sent away to England out of the way of persecution. 
We could not but feel a pity for them, as they sat there on their 
benches in the church conspicuous ; and thought of the scorn and 
contumely which attended them without, as they passed, in their 
European dresses and shaven beards, among their grisly, scowling, 
long-robed countrymen. 

As elsewhere in the towns I have seen, the Ghetto of Jerusalem 
is pre-eminent in filth. The people are gathered round about the 
dung-gate of the city. Of a Friday you may hear their wailings and 
lamentations for the lost glories of their city. I think the Valley of 
Jehoshaphat is the most ghastly sight I have seen in the world. 
From all quarters they come hither to bury their dead. When his 
time is come yonder hoary old miser, with whom we made our 
voyage, will lay his carcase to rest here. To do that, and to claw 
together money, has been the purpose of that strange, long life. 

We brought with us one of the gentlemen of the mission, a 



ENGLISH SERVICE IN JERUSALEM. 463 

Hebrew convert, the Rev. Mr. E ; and lest I should be supposed 

to speak with disrespect above of any of the converts of the Hebrew 
faith, let me mention this gentleman as the only one whom I had the 
fortune to meet on terms of intimacy. I never saw a man whose 
outward conduct was more touching, whose sincerity was more 
evident, and whose religious feeling seemed more deep, real, and 
reasonable. 

Only a few feet off, the walls of the Anglican Church of Jerusalem 
rise up from their foundations, on a picturesque open spot, in front 
of the Bethlehem Gate. The English Bishop has his church hard 
by : and near it is the house where the Christians of our denomination 
assemble and worship. 

There seem to be polyglot services here. I saw books of prayer, 
or Scripture, in Hebrew, Greek, and German : in which latter 
language Dr. Alexander preaches every Sunday. A gentleman who 
sat near me at church used all these books indifferently ; reading the 
first lesson from the Hebrew book, and the second from the Greek. 
Here we all assembled on the Sunday after our arrival : it was 
affecting to hear the music and language of our country sounding in 
this distant place ; to have the decent and manly ceremonial of our 
service ; the prayers delivered in that noble language. Even that 
stout anti-prelatist, the American consul, who has left his house and 
fortune in America in order to witness the coming of the Millennium, 
who believes it to be so near that he has brought a dove with him 
from his native land (which bird he solemnly informed us was to 
survive the expected Advent), was affected by the good old words 
and service. He swayed about and moaned in his place at various 
passages ; during the sermon he gave especial marks of sympathy and 
approbation. I never heard the service more excellently and impres- 
sively read than by the Bishop's chaplain, Mr. Veitch. But it was 
the music that was most touching I thought, — the sweet old songs of 
home. 

There was a considerable company assembled : near a hundred 
people I should think. Our party made a large addition to the usual 
congregation. The Bishop's family is proverbially numerous : the 
consul, and the gentlemen of the mission, have wives, and children, 
and English establishments. These, and the strangers, occupied 
places down the room, to the- right and left of the desk and com- 
munion-table. The converts, and the members of the college, in 



464 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

rather a scanty number, faced the officiating clergyman ; before whom 
the silver maces of the janissaries were set up, as they set up the 
beadles' maces in England. 

I made many walks round the city to Olivet and Bethany, to the 
tombs of the kings, and the fountains sacred in story. These are 
green and fresh, but all the rest of the landscape seemed to me to be 
frightful. Parched mountains, with a gray bleak olive-tree trembling 
here and there ; savage ravines and valleys, paved with tombstones — 
a landscape unspeakably ghastly and desolate, meet the eye wherever 
you wander round about the city. The place seems quite adapted to 
the events which are recorded in the Hebrew histories. It and they, 
as it seems to me, can never be regarded without terror. Fear and 
blood, crime and punishment, follow from page to page in frightful 
succession. There is not a spot at which you look, but some violent 
deed has been done there : some massacre has been committed, some 
victim has been murdered, some idol has been worshipped with 
bloody and dreadful rites. Not far from hence is the place where the 
Jewish conqueror fought for the possession of Jerusalem. " The sun 
stood still, and hasted not to go down about a whole day ; " so that 
the Jews might have daylight to destroy the Amorites, whose iniquities 
were full, and whose land they were about to occupy. The fugitive 
heathen king, and his allies, were discovered in their hiding-place, 
and hanged : " and the children of Judah smote Jerusalem with the 
edge of the sword, and set the city on fire; and they left none 
remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed." 

I went out at the Zion Gate, and looked at the so-called tomb of 
David. I had been reading all the morning in the Psalms, and his 
history in Samuel and Kings. " Bring thou down Shimeis hoar head 
to the grave with blood" are the last words of the dying monarch as 
recorded by the history. What they call the tomb is now a crumb- 
ling old mosque ; from which Jew and Christian are excluded alike. 
As I saw it, blazing in the sunshine, with the purple sky behind it, 
the glare only served to mark the surrounding desolation more 
clearly. The lonely walls and towers of the city rose hard by. 
Dreary mountains, and declivities of naked stones, were round about : 
they are burrowed with holes in which Christian hermits lived and 
died. You see one green place far down in the valley : it is called 
En Rogel. Adonijah feasted there, who was killed by his brother 
Solomon, for asking for Abishag for wife. The Valley of Hinnom 



THE CHURCH OF THE SEPULCHRE. 465 

skirts the hill : the dismal ravine was a fruitful garden once. Ahaz, 
and the idolatrous kings, sacrificed to idols under the green trees 
there, and " caused their children to pass through the fire." On the 
mountain opposite, Solomon, with the thousand women of his harem, 
worshipped the gods of all their nations, " Ashtoreth," and " Milcom, 
and Molech, the abomination of the Ammonites." An enormous 
charnel-house stands on the hill where the bodies of dead pilgrims 
used to be thrown ; and common belief has fixed upon this spot as 
the Aceldama, which Judas purchased with the price of his treason. 
Thus you go on from one gloomy place to another, each seared with 
its bloody tradition. Yonder is the Temple, and you think of Titus's 
soldiery storming its flaming porches, and entering the city, in the 
savage defence of which two million human souls perished. It was 
on Mount Zion that Godfrey and Tancred had their camp : when the 
Crusaders entered the mosque, they rode knee-deep in the blood of 
its defenders, and of the women and children who had fled thither 
for refuge : it was the victory of Joshua over again. Then, after 
three days of butchery, they purified the desecrated mosque and went 
to prayer. In the centre of this history of crime rises up the Great 

Murder of all 

I need say no more about this gloomy landscape. After a man 
has seen it once, he never forgets it — the recollection of it seems to 
me to follow him like a remorse, as it were to implicate him in the 
awful deed which was done there. Oh ! with what unspeakable 
shame and terror should one think of that crime, and prostrate him- 
self before the image of that Divine Blessed Sufferer ! 

Of course the first visit of the traveller is to the famous Church 
of the Sepulchre. 

In the archway, leading from the street to the court and church, 
there is a little bazaar of Bethlehemites, who must interfere con- 
siderably with the commerce of the Latin fathers. These men bawl 
to you from their stalls, and hold up for your purchase their devo- 
tional baubles, — bushels of rosaries and scented beads, and carved 
mother-of-pearl shells, and rude stone salt-cellars and figures. Now 
that inns are established, — envoys of these pedlars attend them on 
the arrival of strangers, squat all day on the terraces before your 
door, and patiently entreat you to buy of their goods. Some 
worthies there are who drive a good trade by tattooing pilgrims with 

30 



466 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

the five crosses, the arms of Jerusalem ; under which the name of the 
city is punctured in Hebrew, with the auspicious year of the Hadji's 
visit. Several of our fellow-travellers submitted to this queer opera- 
tion, and will carry to their grave this relic of their journey. Some 
of them had engaged a servant, a man at Beyrout, who had served 
as a lad on board an English ship in the Mediterranean. Above his 
tattooage of the five crosses, the fellow had a picture of two hearts 
united, and the pathetic motto, " Betsy my dear." He had parted 
with Betsy my dear five years before at Malta. He had known a 
little English there, but had forgotten it. Betsy my dear was for- 
gotten too. Only her name remained engraved with a vain simu- 
lacrum of constancy on the faithless rogue's skin : on which was now 
printed another token of equally effectual devotion. The beads and 
the tattooing, however, seem essential ceremonies attendant on the 
Christian pilgrim's visit ; for many hundreds of years, doubtless, 
the palmers have carried off with them these simple reminiscences 
of the sacred city. That symbol has been engraven upon the arms 
of how many Princes, Knights, and Crusaders ! Don't you see a 
moral as applicable to them as to the swindling Beyrout horseboy ? 
I have brought you back that cheap and wholesome apologue, in lieu 
of any of the Bethlehemite shells and beads. 

After passing through the porch of the pedlars, you come to the 
courtyard in front of the noble old towers of the Church of the 
Sepulchre, with pointed arches and Gothic traceries, rude, but rich and 
picturesque in design. Here crowds are waiting in the sun, until it shall 
please the Turkish guardians of the church-door to open. A swarm 
of beggars sit here permanently : old tattered hags with long veils, 
ragged children, blind old bearded beggars, who raise up a chorus of 
prayers for money, holding out their wooden bowls, or clattering 
with their sticks on the stones, or pulling your coat-skirts and moaning 
and whining ; yonder sit a group of coal-black Coptish pilgrims, with 
robes and turbans of dark blue, fumbling their perpetual beads. A 
party of Arab Christians have come up from their tents or villages : 
the men half-naked, looking as if they were beggars, or banditti, 
upon occasion ; the women have flung their head-cloths back, and 
are looking at the strangers under their tattooed eyebrows. As for 
the strangers, there is no need to describe them ; that figure of the 
Englishman, with his hands in his pockets, has been seen all the 
world over : staring down the crater of Vesuvius, or into a Hottentot 



THE PORCH OF THE SEPULCHRE. 



467 



kraal — or at a pyramid, or a Parisian coffee-house, or an Esquimaux 
hut — with the same insolent calmness of demeanour. When the 
gates of the church are open, he elbows in among the first, and 
flings a few scornful piastres to the Turkish door-keeper ; and gazes 
round easily at the place, in which people of every other nation in the 
world are in tears, or in rapture, or wonder. He has never seen the 
place until now, and looks as indifferent as the Turkish guardian who 
sits in the doorway, and swears at the people as they pour in. 




Indeed, I believe it is impossible for us to comprehend the 
source and nature of the Roman Catholic devotion. I once went 
into a church at Rome at the request of a Catholic friend, who 
described the interior to be so beautiful and glorious, that he thought 
(he said) it must be like heaven itself. I found walls hung with 
cheap stripes of pink and white calico, altars covered with artificial 
flowers, a number of wax-candles, and plenty of gilt-paper orna ; 
ments. The place seemed to me like a shabby theatre ; and here 
was my friend on his knees at my side, plunged in a rapture of 
wonder and devotion. 

I could get no better impression out of this the most famous 
church in the world. The deceits are too open and flagrant ; the 



468 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

inconsistencies and contrivances too monstrous. It is hard even to 
sympathize with persons who receive them as genuine ; and though 
(as I know and saw in the case of my friend at Rome) the believer's 
life may be passed in the purest exercise of faith and charity, it is 
difficult even to give him credit for honesty, so barefaced seem the 
impostures which he professes to believe and reverence. It costs 
one no small effort even to admit the possibility of a Catholic's 
credulity : to share in his rapture and devotion is still further out of 
your power ; and I could get from this church no other emotions 
but those of shame and pain. 

The legends with which the Greeks and Latins have garnished 
the spot have no more sacredness for you than the hideous, unreal, 
barbaric pictures and ornaments which they have lavished on it. 
Look at the fervour with which pilgrims kiss and weep over a tawdry 
Gothic painting, scarcely better fashioned than an idol in a South 
Sea Morai. The histories which they are called upon to reverence 
are of the same period and order,— savage Gothic caricatures. In 
either a saint appears in the costume of the middle ages, and is made 
to accommodate himself to the fashion of the tenth century. 

The different churches battle for the possession of the various 
relics. The Greeks show you the Tomb of Melchisedec, while the 
Armenians possess the Chapel of the Penitent Thief; the poor Copts 
(with their little cabin of a chapel) can yet boast of possessing the 
thicket in which Abraham caught the Ram, which was to serve as 
the vicar of Isaac ; the Latins point out the Pillar to which the Lord 
was bound. The place of the Invention of the Sacred Cross, the 
Fissure in the Rock of Golgotha, the Tomb of Adam himself — are 
all here within a few yards' space. You mount a few steps, and are 
told it is Calvary upon which you stand. All this in the midst of 
flaring candles, reeking incense, savage pictures of Scripture story, 
or portraits of kings who have been benefactors to the various chapels ; 
a din and clatter of strange people, — these weeping, bowing, kissing, 
— those utterly indifferent ; and the priests clad in outlandish robes, 
snuffling and chanting incomprehensible litanies, robing, disrobing, 
lighting up candles or extinguishing them, advancing, retreating, 
bowing with all sorts of unfamiliar genuflexions. Had it pleased the 
inventors of the Sepulchre topography to have fixed on fifty more 
spots of ground as the places of the events of the sacred story, the 
pilgrim would have believed just as now. The priest's authority 



SECTARIAN JEALOUSIES. 469 

has so mastered his faith, that it accommodates itself to any demand 
upon it ; and the English stranger looks on the scene, for the first 
time, with a feeling of scorn, bewilderment, and shame at that 
grovelling credulity, those strange rites and ceremonies, that almost 
confessed imposture. 

Jarred and distracted by these, the Church of the Holy 
Sepulchre, for some time, seems to an Englishman the least sacred 
spot about Jerusalem. It is the lies, and the legends, and the 
priests, and their quarrels, and their ceremonies, which keep the 
Holy Place out of sight. A man has not leisure to view it, for the 
brawling of the guardians of the spot. The Roman conquerors, 
they say, raised up a statue of Venus in this sacred place, intending 
to destroy all memory of it. I don't think the heathen was as 
criminal as the Christian is now. To deny and disbelieve, is not so 
bad as to make belief a ground to cheat upon. The liar Ananias 
perished for that ; and yet out of these gates, where angels may have 
kept watch — out of the tomb of Christ — Christian priests issue with 
a lie in their hands. What a place to choose for imposture, good 
God ! to sully, with brutal struggles for self-aggrandisement, or 
shameful schemes of gain ! 

The situation of the Tomb (into which, be it authentic or not, no 
man can enter without a shock of breathless fear, and deep and 
awful self-humiliation,) must have struck all travellers. It stands in 
the centre of the arched rotunda, which is common to all denomina- 
tions, and from which branch off the various chapels belonging to 
each particular sect. In the Coptic Chapel I saw one coal-black 
Copt, in blue robes, cowering in the little cabin, surrounded by dingy 
lamps, barbarous pictures, and cheap, faded trumpery. In the Latin 
Church there was no service going on, only two fathers dusting the 
mouldy gewgaws along the brown walls, and laughing to one another. 
The gorgeous church of the Fire impostors, hard by, was always 
more fully attended ; as was that of their wealthy neighbours, the 
Armenians. These three main sects hate each other ; their quarrels 
are interminable ; each bribes and intrigues with the heathen lords of 
the soil, to the prejudice of his neighbour. Now it is the Latins who 
interfere, and allow the common church to go to ruin, because the 
Greeks purpose to roof it ; now the Greeks demolish a monastery on 
Mount Olivet, and leave the ground to the Turks, rather than allow 
the Armenians to possess it. On another occasion, the Greeks 



470 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

having mended the Armenian steps, which lead to the (so-called) Cave 
of the Nativity at Bethlehem, the latter asked for permission to 
destroy the work of the Greeks, and did so. And so round this 
sacred spot, the centre of Christendom, the representatives of the 
three great sects worship under one roof, and hate each other ! 

Above the Tomb of the Saviour, the cupola is open, and you see 
the blue sky overhead. Which of the builders was it that had the 
grace to leave that under the high protection of heaven, and not 
confine it under the mouldering old domes and roofs, which cover so 
much selfishness, and uncharitableness, and imposture ! 

We went to Bethlehem, too; and saw the apocryphal wonders 
there. 

Five miles' ride brings you from Jerusalem to it, over naked 
wavy hills ; the aspect of which, however, grows more cheerful as you 
approach the famous village. We passed the Convent of Mar Elyas 
on the road, walled and barred like a fort In spite of its strength, 
however, it has more than once been stormed by the Arabs, and the 
luckless fathers within put to death. Hard by was Rebecca's Well : 
a dead body was lying there, and crowds of male and female 
mourners dancing and howling round it. Now and then a little 
troop of savage scowling horsemen — a shepherd driving his black 
sheep, his gun over his shoulder — a troop of camels — or of women, 
with long blue robes and white veils, bearing pitchers, and staring at 
the strangers with their great solemn eyes — or a company of labourers, 
with their donkeys, bearing grain or grapes to the city, — met us and 
enlivened the little ride. It was a busy and cheerful scene. The 
Church of the Nativity, with the adjoining Convents, forms a vast 
and noble Christian structure. A party of travellers were going to the 
Jordan that day, and scores of their followers — of the robbing Arabs, 
who profess to protect them, (magnificent figures some of them, with 
flowing haicks and turbans, with long guns and scimitars, and 
wretched horses, covered with gaudy trappings,) were standing on the 
broad pavement before the little Convent gate. It was such a scene 
as Cattermole might paint. Knights and Crusaders may have 
witnessed a similar one. You could fancy them issuing out of the 
narrow little portal, and so greeted by the swarms of swarthy 
clamorous women and merchants and children. 

The scene within the building was of the same Gothic character. 



THE ARMENIAN CONVENT. 471 

We were entertained by the Superior of the Greek Convent, in a fine 
refectory, with ceremonies and hospitalities that pilgrims of the 
middle ages might have witnessed. We were shown over the 
magnificent Barbaric Church, visited of course the Grotto where the 
Blessed Nativity is said to have taken place, and the rest of the idols 
set up for worship by the clumsy legend. When the visit was con- 
cluded, the party going to the Dead Sea filed off with their armed 
attendants ; each individual traveller making as brave a show as he 
could, and personally accoutred with warlike swords and pistols. 
The picturesque crowds, and the Arabs and the horsemen, in the sun- 
shine ; the noble old convent, and the gray-bearded priests, with their 
feast ; and the church, and its pictures and columns, and incense ; 
the wide brown hills spreading round the village ; with the accidents 
of the road, — flocks and shepherds, wells and funerals, and camel- 
trains, — have left on my mind a brilliant, romantic, and cheerful picture. 

But you, Dear M , without visiting the place, have imagined one 

far finer ; and Bethlehem, where the Holy Child was born, and the 
angels sang, " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace and 
goodwill towards men," is the most sacred and beautiful spot in the 
earth to you. 

By far the most comfortable quarters in Jerusalem are those of 
the Armenians, in their convent of St. James. Wherever we have 
been, these Eastern quakers look grave, and jolly, and sleek. Their 
convent at Mount Zion is big enough to contain two or three 
thousand of their faithful ; and their church is ornamented by the 
most rich and hideous gifts ever devised by uncouth piety. Instead 
of a bell, the fat monks of the convent beat huge noises on a board, 
and drub the faithful into prayers. I never saw men more lazy and 
rosy than these reverend fathers, kneeling in their comfortable matted 
church, or sitting in easy devotion. Pictures, images, gilding, tinsel, 
wax-candles, twinkle all over the place ; and ten thousand ostrichs' eggs 
(or any lesser number you may allot) dangle from the vaulted ceiling. 
There were great numbers of people at worship in this gorgeous 
church ; they went on their knees, kissing the walls with much fervour, 
and paying reverence to the most precious relic of the convent, — the 
chair of St. James, their patron, the first Bishop of Jerusalem. 

The chair pointed out with greatest pride in the church of the 
Latin Convent, is that shabby red damask one appropriated to the 



472 A JOURNEY FRO AT CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

French Consul, — the representative of the king of that nation, — and 
the protection which it has from time immemorial accorded to the 
Christians of the Latin rite in Syria. All French writers and travellers 
speak of this protection with delightful complacency. Consult the 
French books of travel on the subject, and any Frenchman whom you 
may meet : he says, "La France, Monsieur, de tons les temps protege les 
Chretiens d 'Orient ; " and the little fellow looks round the church with 
a sweep of the arm, and protects it accordingly. It is don ton for 
them to go in processions ; and you see them on such errands, 
marching with long candles, as gravely as may be. But I have 
never been able to edify myself with their devotion ; and the religious 
outpourings of Lamartine and Chateaubriand, which we have all been 
reading apropos cf the journey we are to make, have inspired me 
with an emotion anything but respectful. " Voyez comme M. de 
Chateaubriand prie Dieu" the Viscount's eloquence seems always to 
say. There is a sanctified grimace about the little French pilgrim 
which it is very difficult to contemplate gravely. 

The pictures, images, and ornaments of the principal Latin 
convent are quite mean and poor, compared to the wealth of the 
Armenians. The convent is spacious, but squalid. Many hopping 
and crawling plagues are said to attack the skins of pilgrims who sleep 
there. It is laid out in courts and galleries, the mouldy doors of which 
are decorated with twopenny pictures of favourite saints and martyrs ; 
and so great is the shabbiness and laziness, that you might fancy 
yourself in a convent in Italy. Brown-clad fathers, dirty, bearded, 
and sallow, go gliding about the corridors. The relic manufactory 
before mentioned carries on a considerable business, and despatches 
bales of shells, crosses, and beads to believers in Europe. These 
constitute the chief revenue of the convent now. La France is no 
longer the most Christian kingdom, and her protection of the Latins 
is not good for much since Charles X. was expelled ; and Spain, which 
used likewise to be generous on occasions, (the gifts, arms, candle- 
sticks, baldaquins of the Spanish sovereigns figure pretty frequently 
in the various Latin chapels,) has been stingy since the late dis- 
turbances, the spoliation of the clergy, &c. After we had been taken 
to see the humble curiosities of the place, the Prior treated us in his 
wooden parlour with little glasses of pink Rosolio, brought with many 
bows and genuflexions by his reverence the convent butler. 

After this community of holy men, the most important perhaps is 



AN AMERICAN CONSUL. 473 

the American Convent, a Protestant congregation of Independents 
chiefly, who deliver tracts, propose to make converts, have meetings 
of their own, and also swell the little congregation that attends the 
Anglican service. I have mentioned our fellow-traveller, the Consul- 
General for Syria of the United States. He was a tradesman, who 
had made a considerable fortune, and lived at a country-house in 
comfortable retirement. But his opinion is, that the prophecies of 
Scripture are about to be accomplished ; that the day of the return of 
the Jews is at hand, and the glorification of the restored Jerusalem. 
He is to witness this — he and a favourite dove with which he travels ; 
and he forsook home and comfortable country-house, in order to 
make this journey. He has no other knowledge of Syria but what 
he derives from the prophecy ; and this (as he takes the office gratis) 
has been considered a sufficient reason for his appointment by the 
United States' Government. As soon as he arrived, he sent and 
demanded an interview with the Pasha ; explained to him his inter- 
pretation of the Apocalypse, in which he has discovered that the Five 
Powers and America are about to intervene in Syrian affairs, and the 
infallible return of the Jews to Palestine. The news must have 
astonished the Lieutenant of the Sublime Porte ; and since the days 
of the Kingdom of Munster, under his Anabaptist Majesty, John of 
Leyden, I doubt whether any Government has received or appointed 
so queer an ambassador. The kind, worthy, simple man took me to 
his temporary consulate-house at the American Missionary Establish- 
ment ; and, under pretence of treating me to white wine, expounded 
his ideas ; talked of futurity as he would about an article in The 
Times ; and had no more doubt of seeing a divine kingdom established 
in Jerusalem than you that there will be a levee next spring at 
St. James's. The little room in which we sat was padded with 
missionary tracts, but I heard of scarce any converts — not more than 
are made by our own Episcopal establishment. 

But if the latter's religious victories are small, and very few people 
are induced by the American tracts, and the English preaching and 
catechizing, to forsake their own manner of worshipping the Divine 
Being in order to follow ours ; yet surely our religious colony of men 
and women can't fail to do good, by the sheer force of good example, 
pure life, and kind offices. The ladies of the mission have numbers 
of clients, of all persuasions, in the town, to whom they extend their 
charities. Each of their houses is a model of neatness, and a dis- 



474 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

pensary of gentle kindnesses ; and the ecclesiastics have formed a 
modest centre of civilization in the place. A dreary joke was made 
in the House of Commons about Bishop Alexander and the Bishopess 
his lady, and the Bishoplings his numerous children, who were said 
to have scandalized the people of Jerusalem. That sneer evidently 
came from the Latins and Greeks ; for what could the Jews and 
Turks care because an English clergyman had a wife and children as 
their own priests have? There was no sort of ill-will exhibited 
towards them, as far as I could learn ; and I saw the Bishop's children 
riding about the town as safely as they could about Hyde Park. All 
Europeans, indeed, seemed to me to be received with forbearance, 
and almost courtesy, within the walls. As I was going about making 
sketches, the people would look on very good-humouredly, without 
offering the least interruption ; nay, two or three were quite ready to 
stand still for such a humble portrait as my pencil could make of 
them ; and the sketch done, it was passed from one person to another, 
each making his comments, and signifying a very polite approval. 
Here are a pair of them, Fath Allah and Ameenut Daoodee his 




father, horse-dealers by trade, who came and sat with us at the inn, 
and smoked pipes (the sun being down), while the original of the 
above masterpiece was made. With the Arabs outside the walls, 
however, and the freshly arriving country-people, this politeness was 



SUBJECTS FOR SKETCHING. 475 

not so much exhibited. There was a certain tattooed girl, with black 
eyes and huge silver earrings, and a chin delicately picked out with 
blue, who formed one of a group of women outside the great convent, 
whose likeness I longed to carry off; — there was a woman with a little 
child, with wondering eyes, drawing water at the pool of Siloam, in 
such an attitude and dress as Rebecca may have had when Isaac's 
lieutenant asked her for drink : — both of these parties standing still 
for half a minute, at the next cried out for backsheesh ; and not 
content with the five piastres which I gave them individually, 
screamed out for more, and summoned their friends, who screamed 
out backsheesh too. I was pursued into the convent by a dozen 
howling women calling for pay, barring the door against them, to the 
astonishment of the worthy papa who kept it ; and at Miriam's Well 
the women were joined by a man with a large stick, who backed their 
petition. But him we could afford to laugh at, for we were two, and 
had sticks likewise. 

In the village of Siloam I would not recommend the artist to 
loiter. A colony of ruffians inhabit the dismal place, who have guns 
as well as sticks at need. Their dogs howl after the strangers as they 
pass through ; and over the parapets of their walls you are saluted by 
the scowls of a villanous set of countenances, that it is not good to 
see with one pair of eyes. They shot a man at mid-day at a few 
hundred yards from the gates while we were at Jerusalem, and no 
notice was taken of the murder. Hordes of Arab robbers infest the 
neighbourhood of the city, with the Sheikhs of whom travellers make 
terms when minded to pursue their journey. I never could under- 
stand why the walls stopped these warriors if they had a mind to 
plunder the city, for there are but a hundred and fifty men in the 
garrison to man the long lonely lines of defence. 

I have seen only in Titian's pictures those magnificent purple 
shadows in which the hills round about lay, as the dawn rose faintly 
behind them ; and we looked at Olivet for the last time from our 
terrace, where we were awaiting the arrival of the horses that were to 
carry us to Jaffa. A yellow moon was still blazing in the midst of 
countless brilliant stars overhead ; the nakedness and misery of the 
surrounding city were hidden in that beautiful rosy atmosphere of 
mingling night and dawn. The city never looked so noble ; the 
mosques, domes, and minarets rising up into the calm star-lit sky. 



476 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

By the gate of Bethlehem there stands one palm-tree, and a house 
with three domes. Put these and the huge old Gothic gate as a 
background dark against the yellowing eastern sky : the foreground 
is a deep gray : as you look into it dark forms of horsemen come out 
of the twilight : now there come lanterns, more horsemen, a litter 
with mules, a crowd of Arab horseboys and dealers accompanying 
their, beasts to the gate ; all the members of our party come up by 
twos and threes ; and, at last, the great gate opens just before sunrise, 
and we get into the gray plains. 

Oh ! the luxury of an English saddle ! An English servant of one 
of the gentlemen of the mission procured it for me, on the back of a 
little mare, which (as I am a light weight) did not turn a hair in the 
course of the day's march — and after we got quit of the ugly, stony, 
clattering, mountainous Abou Gosh district, into the fair undulating 
plain, which stretches to Ramleh, carried me into the town at a 
pleasant hand-gallop. A negro, of preternatural ugliness, in a yellow 
gown, with a crimson handkerchief streaming over his head, digging 
his shovel spurs into the lean animal he rode, and driving three 
others before — swaying backwards and forwards on his horse, now 
embracing his ears, and now almost under his belly, screaming "yallah" 
with the most frightful shrieks, and singing country songs — galloped 
along ahead of me. I acquired one of his poems pretty well, and 
could imitate his shriek accurately ; but I shall not have the pleasure 
of singing it to you in England. I had forgotten the delightful 
dissonance two days after, both the negro's and that of a real Arab 
minstrel, a donkey-driver accompanying our baggage, who sang and 
grinned with the most amusing good humour. 

We halted, in the middle of the day, in a little wood of olive- 
trees, which forms almost the only shelter between Jaffa and 
Jerusalem, except that afforded by the orchards in the odious village 
of Abou Gosh, through which we went at a double quick pace. 
Under the olives, or up in the branches, some of our friends took a 
siesta. I have a sketch of four of them so employed. Two of them 
were dead within a month of the fatal Syrian fever. But we did not 
know how near fate was .to us then. Fires were lighted, and fowls 
and eggs divided, and tea and coffee served rcund in tin panikins, 
and here we lighted pipes, and smoked and laughed at our ease. I 
believe everybody was happy to be out of Jerusalem. The impression 
I have of it now is of ten days passed in a fever. 



RAMLEH. 477 

We all found quarters in the Greek convent at Ramleh, where 
the monks served us a supper on a terrace, in a pleasant sunset ; a 
beautiful and cheerful landscape stretching around ; the land in 
graceful undulations, the towers and mosques rosy in the sunset, with 
no lack of verdure, especially of graceful palms. Jaffa was nine miles 
off. As we rode all the morning we had been accompanied by the 
smoke of our steamer, twenty miles off at sea. 

The convent is a huge caravanserai ; only three or four monks 
dwell in it, the ghostly hotel-keepers of the place. The horses were 
tied up and fed in the courtyard, into which we rode ; above were 
the living-rooms, where there is accommodation, not only for an 
unlimited number of pilgrims, but for a vast and innumerable host of 
hopping and crawling things, who usually persist in partaking of the 
traveller's bed. Let all thin-skinned travellers in the East be warned 
on no account to travel without the admirable invention described in 
Mr. Fellowes' book ; nay, possibly invented by that enterprising and 
learned traveller. You make a sack, of calico or linen, big enough 
for the body, appended to which is a closed chimney of muslin, 
stretched out by cane-hoops, and fastened up to a beam, or against 
the wall. You keep a sharp eye to see that no flea or bug is on 
the look-out, and when assured of this, you pop into the bag, tightly 
closing the orifice after you. This admirable bug-disappointer I tried 
at Ramleh, and had the only undisturbed night's rest I enjoyed in 
the east. To be sure it was a short night, for our party were stirring 
at one o'clock, and those who got up insisted on talking and keeping 
awake those who inclined to sleep. But I shall never forget the 
terror inspired in my mind, being shut up in the bug-disappointer, 
wheh a facetious lay-brother of the convent fell upon me and began 
tickling me. I never had the courage again to try the anti-flea 
contrivance, preferring the friskiness of those animals to the sports of 
such a greasy grinning wag as my friend at Ramleh. 

In the morning, and long before sunrise, our little caravan was in 
marching order again. We went out with lanterns and shouts of 
"yallah" through the narrow streets, and issued into the plain, where, 
though there was no moon, there were blazing stars shining steadily 
overhead. They become friends to a man who travels, especially 
under the clear Eastern sky ; whence they look down as if protecting 
you, solemn, yellow, and refulgent. They seem nearer to you than 
in Europe ; larger and more awful. So we rode on till the dawn 



478 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

rose, and Jaffa came in view. The friendly ship was lying out in 
waiting for us ; the horses were given up to their owners : and in the 
midst of a crowd of naked beggars, and a perfect storm of curses and 
yells for backsheesh, our party got into their boats, and to the ship, 
where we were welcomed by the very best captain that ever sailed 
upon this maritime globe, namely, Captain Samuel Lewis, of the 
Peninsular and Oriental Company's Service. 



( 479 ) 



CHAPTER XIV. 

FROM JAFFA TO ALEXANDRIA. 

[From the Provider's Log-book.'] 

BILL OF FARE, October 12TH. 

Mulligatawny Soup. 

Salt Fish and Egg Sauce. 

Roast Haunch of Mutton. 

Boiled Shoulder and Onion Sauce. 

Boiled Beef. 

Roast Fowls. 

Pillau ditto. 

Ham. 

Haricot Mutton. 

Curry and Rice. 

Cabbage. 
French Beans. 
Boiled Potatoes. 
Baked ditto. 

Damson Tart. 
Currant ditto. 
Rice Puddings. 
Currant Fritters. 

We were just at the port's mouth — and could see the towers and 
buildings of Alexandria rising purple against the sunset, when the 
report of a gun came booming over the calm golden water ; and we 
heard, with much mortification, that we had no chance of getting 
pratique that night. Already the ungrateful passengers had begun to 
tire of the ship, — though, in our absence in Syria it had been carefully 
cleansed and purified ; though it was cleared of the swarming Jews 
who had infested the decks all the way from Constantinople ; and 
though we had been feasting and carousing in the manner described 
above. 

But very early next morning we bore into the harbour, busy with 
a great quantity of craft. We passed huge black hulks of mouldering 
men-of-war, from the sterns of which trailed the dirty red flag, with 
the star and crescent ; boats,' manned with red-capped seamen, and 



480 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

captains and steersmen in beards and tarbooshes, passed continually 
among these old hulks, the rowers bending to their oars, so that at 
each stroke they disappeared bodily in the boat. Besides these, 
there was a large fleet of country ships, and stars and stripes, and 
tricolours, and Union Jacks ; and many active steamers, of the French 
and English companies, shooting in and out of the harbour, or 
moored in the briny waters. The ship of our company, the 
" Oriental," lay there — a palace upon the brine, and some of the 
Pasha's steam-vessels likewise, l&oking very like Christian boats ; but 
it was queer to look at some unintelligible Turkish flourish painted 
on the stern, and the long-tailed Arabian hieroglyphics gilt on the 
paddle-boxes. Our dear friend and comrade of Beyrout (if we may 
be permitted to call her so), H.M.S. "Trump," was in the harbour; 
and the captain of that gallant ship, coming to greet us, drove some 
of us on shore in his gig. 

I had been preparing myself overnight, by the help of a cigar and 
a moonlight contemplation on deck, for sensations on landing in 
Egypt. I was ready to yield myself up with solemnity to the mystic 
grandeur of the scene of initiation. Pompey's Pillar must stand like 
a mountain, in a yellow plain, surrounded by a grove of obelisks as 
tall as palm-trees. Placid sphinxes brooding o'er the Nile — mighty 
Memnonian countenances calm — had revealed Egypt to me in a 
sonnet of Tennyson's, and I was ready to gaze on it with pyramidal 
wonder and hieroglyphic awe. 

The landing quay at Alexandria is like the dockyard quay at 
Portsmouth : with a few score of brown faces scattered among the 
population. There are slop-sellers, dealers in marine-stores, bottled- 
porter shops, seamen lolling about; flies and cabs are plying for 
hire : and a yelling chorus of donkey-boys, shrieking, " Ride, sir ! — 
donkey, sir ! — I say, sir ! " in excellent English, dispel all romantic 
notions. The placid sphinxes brooding o'er the Nile disappeared 
with that shriek of the donkey-boys. You might be as well impressed 
with Wapping as with your first step on Egyptian soil. 

The riding of a donkey is, after all, not a dignified occupation. 
A man resists the offer at first, somehow, as an indignity. How is that 
poor little, red-saddled, long-eared creature to carry you ? Is there 
to be one for you and another for your legs ? Natives and Europeans, 
of all sizes, pass by, it is true, mounted upon the same contrivance. 
I waited until I got into a very private spot, where nobody could see 



FROM JAFFA TO ALEXANDRIA. 481 

me, and then ascended— why not say descended, at once ? — on the 
poor little animal. Instead of being crushed at once, as perhaps the 
rider expected, it darted forward, quite briskly and cheerfully, at six 
or seven miles an hour ; requiring no spur or admonitive to haste, 
•except the shrieking of the little Egyptian gamin, who ran along by 
asinus's side. 

The character of the houses by which you pass is scarcely 
Eastern at all. The streets are busy with a motley population 
of Jews and Armenians, slave-driving-looking Europeans, large- 
breeched Greeks, and well-shaven buxom merchants, looking as trim 
and fat as those on the Bourse or on 'Change ; only, among the 
natives, the stranger can't fail to remark (as the Caliph did of the 
Calendars, in the "Arabian Nights ") that so many of them have only 
one eye. It is the horrid ophthalmia which has played such frightful 
ravages with them. You see children sitting in the doorways, their 
eyes completely closed up with the green sickening sore, and the flies 
feeding on them. Five or six minutes of the donkey-ride brings you 
to the Frank quarter, and the handsome broad street (like a street of 
Marseilles) where the principal hotels and merchants' houses are to 
be found, and where the consuls have their houses, and hoist their 
flags. The palace of the French Consul-General makes the grandest 
show in the street, and presents a great contrast to the humble abode 
of the English representative, who protects his fellow-countrymen 
from a second floor. 

But that Alexandrian two-pair-front of a Consulate was more 
welcome and cheering than a palace to most of us. For there lay 
certain letters, with post-marks of Home upon them j and kindly 
tidings, the first heard for two months : — though we had seen so many 
men and cities since, that Cornhill seemed to be a year off, at least, 
with certain persons dwelling (more or less) in that vicinity. I saw a 
young Oxford man seize his despatches, and slink off with several 
letters, written in a tight, neat hand, and sedulously crossed ; which 
any man could see, without looking farther, were the handiwork of 
Mary Ann, to whom he is attached. The lawyer received a bundle 
from his chambers, in which his clerk eased his soul regarding the 
state of Snooks v. Rodgers, Smith ats Tomkins, &c. The statesman 
nad a packet of thick envelopes, decorated with that profusion of 
seaiing-wax in which official recklessness lavishes the resources of the 
country: and your humble servant got just one little, modest letter, 

31 



4S2 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

containing another, written in pencil characters, varying in size 
between one and two inches ; but how much pleasanter to read than 
my lord's dispatch, or the clerk's account of Smith ats Tomkins, — 
yes, even than the Mary Ann correspondence ! . . . . Yes, my dear 
madam, you will understand me, when I say that it was from little 
Polly at home, with some confidential news about a cat, and the last 
report of her new doll. 

It is worth while to have made the journey for this pleasure : to 
have walked the deck on long nights, and have thought of home. 
You have no leisure to do so in the city. You don't see the heavens 
shine above you so purely there, or the stars so clearly. How, after 
the perusal of the above documents, we enjoyed a file of the admirable 
Galignani; and what O'Connell was doing ; and the twelve last new 
victories of the French in Algeria ; and, above all, six or seven 
numbers of Punch / There might have been an avenue of Pompey's 
Pillars within reach, and a live sphinx sporting on the banks of the 
Mahmoodieh Canal, and we would not have stirred to see them, 
until Punch had had his interview and Galignani was dismissed. 

The curiosities of Alexandria are few, and easily seen. We went 
into the bazaars, which have a much more Eastern look than the 
European quarter, with its Anglo-Gallic-Italian inhabitants, and Babel- 
like civilization. Here and there a large hotel, clumsy and white- 
washed, with Oriental trellised windows, and a couple of slouching 
sontinels at the doors, in the ugliest composite uniform that ever was 
seen, was pointed out as the residence of some great officer of the 
Pasha's Court, or of one of the numerous children of the Egyptian 
Solomon. His Highness was in his own palace, and was conse- 
quently not visible. He was in deep grief, and strict retirement. It 
was at this time that the European newspapers announced that he 
was about to resign his empire ; but the quidnuncs of Alexandria 
hinted that a love-affair, in which the old potentate had engaged with 
senile extravagance, and the effects of a potion of hachich, or some 
deleterious drug, with which he was in the habit of intoxicating 
himself, had brought on that languor and desperate weariness of life 
and governing, into which the venerable Prince was plunged. Before 
three days were over, however, the fit had left him, and he determined 
to live and reign a little longer. A very few days afterwards several 
of our party were presented to him at Cairo, and found the great 
Egyptian ruler perfectly convalescent. 



POMPEY'S PILLAR. 483 

This, and the Opera, and the quarrels of the two prime donne, 
and the beauty of one of them, formed the chief subjects of conversa- 
tion ; and I had this important news in the shop of a certain 
barber in the town, who conveyed it in a language composed of 
French, Spanish, and Italian, and with a volubility quite worthy of a 
barber of Gil Bias. 

Then we went to see the famous obelisk presented by Mehemet 
Ali to the British Government, who have not shown a particular 
alacrity to accept this ponderous present. The huge shaft lies on 
the ground prostrate, and desecrated by all sorts of abominations. 
Children were sprawling about, attracted by the dirt there. Arabs, 
negroes, and donkey-boys were passing, quite indifferent, by the 
fallen monster of a stone, — as indifferent as the British Government, 
who don't care for recording the glorious termination of their Egyptian 
campaign of 1 80 1. If our country takes the compliment so coolly, 
surely it would be disloyal upon our parts to be more enthusiastic. I 
wish they would offer the Trafalgar Square Pillar to the Egyptians ; 
and that both of the huge, ugly monsters were lying in the dirt there, 
side by side. 

Pompey's Pillar is by no means so big as the Charing Cross 
trophy. This venerable column has not escaped ill-treatment either. 
Numberless ships' companies, travelling Cockneys, &c, have affixed 
their rude marks upon it. Some daring ruffian even painted the name 
of " Warren's blacking " upon it, effacing other inscriptions, — one, 
Wilkinson says, of " the second Psammetichus." I regret deeply, 
my dear friend, that I cannot give you this document respecting 
a lamented monarch, in whose history I know you take such an 
interest. 

The best sight I saw in Alexandria was a negro holiday ; which 
was celebrated outside of the town by a sort of negro village of huts, 
swarming with old, lean, fat, ugly, infantine, happy faces, that nature 
has smeared with a preparation even more black and durable than 
that with which Psammetichus's base has been polished. Every one 
of these jolly faces was on the broad grin, from the dusky mother to 
'the india-rubber child sprawling upon her back, and the venerable 
jetty senior whose wool was as white as that of a sheep in Florian's 
pastorals. 

To these dancers a couple of fellows were playing on a drum and 
a little banjo. They were singing a chorus, which was not only 



484 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

singular, and perfectly marked in the rhythm, but exceeding sweet in 
the tune. They danced in a circle ; and performers came trooping 
from all quarters, who fell into the round, and began waggling their 
heads, and waving their left hands, and tossing up and down the 
little thin rods which they each carried, and all singing to the very 
best of their power. 




I saw the chief eunuch of the Grand Turk at Constantinople pass 
by — (on the next page is an accurate likeness of his beautiful features) 
— but with what a different expression ! Though he is one of the 
greatest of the great in the Turkish Empire (ranking with a Cabinet 
Minister or Lord Chamberlain here), his fine countenance was 
clouded with care, and savage with ennui. 

Here his black brethren were ragged, starving, and happy ; and I 
need not tell such a fine moralist as you are, how it is the case, in 
the white as well as the black world, that happiness (republican 
leveller, who does not care a fig for the fashion) often disdains the 
turrets of kings, to pay a visit to the " tabernas pauperum." 



THE COFFEE-HOUSES. 



4 Sr 



We went the round of the coffee-houses in the evening, both the 
polite European places of resort, where you get ices and the French 
papers, and those in the town, where Greeks, Turks, and general 
company resort, to sit upon uncomfortable chairs, and drink wretched 
muddy coffee, and to listen to two or three miserable musicians, who 
keep up a variation of howling for hours together. But the pretty 
sona of the niggers had spoiled me for that abominable music. 




486 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 



CHAPTER XV. 

TO CAIRO. 

We had no need of hiring the country boats which ply on the Mah- 
moodieh Canal to Atfeh, where it joins the Nile, but were accommo- 
dated in one of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's fly-boats ; pretty 
similar to those narrow Irish canal boats in which the enterprising 
traveller has been carried from Dublin to Ballinasloe. The present 
boat was, to be sure, tugged by a little steamer, so that the Egyptian 
canal is ahead of the Irish in so far : in natural scenery, the one 
prospect is fully equal to the other; it must be confessed that there is 
nothing to see. In truth, there was nothing but this : you saw a 
muddy bank on each side of you, and a blue sky overhead. A few 
round mud-huts and palm-trees were planted along the line here 
and there. Sometimes we would see, on the water-side, a woman 
in a blue robe, with her son by her, in that tight brown costume 
with which Nature had supplied him. Now, it was a hat dropped 
by one of the party into the water; a brown Arab plunged and 
disappeared incontinently after the hat, re-issued from the muddy 
water, prize in hand, and ran naked after the little steamer (which 
was by this time far ahead of him), his brawny limbs shining in 
the sun : then we had half-cold fowls and bitter ale : then we had 
dinner — bitter ale and cold fowls ; with which incidents the day on 
the canal passed away, as harmlessly as if we had been in a Dutch 
track schuyt. 

Towards evening we arrived at the town of Atfeh — half land, half 
houses, half palm-trees, with swarms of half-naked people crowding 
the rustic shady bazaars, and bartering their produce of fruit or 
many-coloured grain. Here the canal came to a check, ending 
abruptly with a large lock. A little fleet of masts and country ships 
were beyond the lock, and it led into The Nile. 

After all, it is something to have seen these red waters. It is only 
low green banks, mud-huts, and palm-clumps, with the sun setting red 



THE NILE. 



487 



behind them, and the great, dull, sinuous river flashing here and there 
in the light. But it is the Nile, the old Saturn of a stream — a divinity 
yet, though younger river-gods have deposed him. Hail ! O vener- 
able father of crocodiles ! We were all lost in sentiments of the pro- 
foundest awe and respect ; which we proved by tumbling down into 
the cabin of the Nile steamer that was waiting to receive us, and 
fighting and cheating for sleeping-berths. 




At dawn in the morning we were on deck ; the character had not 
altered of the scenery about the river. Vast flat stretches of land 
were on either side, recovering from the subsiding inundations: near the 
mud villages, a country ship or two was roosting under the date-trees; 
the landscape everywhere stretching away level and lonely. In the sky. 
in the east was a long streak of greenish light, which widened and rose 
until it grew to be of an opal colour, then orange ; then, behold, the 
round red disc of the sun rose flaming up above the horizon. All the 
water blushed as he got up ; the deck was all red ; the steercman 
gave his helm to another, and prostrated himself on the deck, and 
bowed his head eastward, and praised the Maker of the sun : it shone 



488 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

on his white turban as he was kneeling, and gilt up his bronzed face, 
and sent his blue shadow over the glowing deck. The distances, 
which had been gray, were now clothed in purple ; and the broad 
stream was illuminated. As the sun rose higher, the morning blush 
faded away ; the sky was cloudless and pale, and the river and the 
surrounding landscape were dazzlingly clear. 

Looking ahead in an hour or two, we saw the Pyramids. Fancy 
my sensations, dear M ; — two big ones and a little one : 



There they lay, rosy and solemn in the distance — those old, majes- 
tical, mystical, familiar edifices. Several of us tried to be impressed ; 
but breakfast supervening, a rush was made at the coffee and cold 
pies, and the sentiment of awe was lost in the scramble for victuals. 

Are we so blase's of the world that the greatest marvels in it do 
not succeed in moving us ? Have society, Pall Mall clubs, and a 
habit of sneering, so withered up our organs of veneration that we 
can admire no more ? My sensation with regard to the Pyramids 
was, that I had seen them before : then came a feeling of shame that 
the view of them should awaken no respect. Then I wanted 
(naturally) to see whether my neighbours were any more enthusiastic 
than myself — Trinity College, Oxford, was busy with the cold ham : 
1 )owning Street was particularly attentive to a bunch of grapes : Fig- 
tree Court behaved with decent propriety ; he is in good practice, 
and of a Conservative turn of mind, which leads him to respect from 
principle les faits accomplis ; perhaps he remembered that one of 
them was as big as Lincoln's Inn Fields. But, the truth is, nobody 

was seriously moved And why should they, because of an 

exaggeration of bricks ever so enormous ? I confess, for my part, 
that the Pyramids are very big. 

After a voyage of about thirty hours, the steamer brought up at 
the quay of Boulak, amidst a small fleet of dirty comfortless Cangias, 
i-n which cottons and merchandise were loading and unloading, and a 
huge noise and bustle on the shore. Numerous villas, parks, and 
country-houses, had begun to decorate the Cairo bank of the stream 
ere this : residences of the Pasha's nobles, who have had orders 
to take their pleasure here and beautify the precincts of the capital ; 



THE HOTEL U ORIENT 489 

tall factory chimneys also rise here ; there are foundries and steam- 
engine manufactories. These, and the pleasure-houses, stand as trim 
as soldiers on parade ; contrasting with the swarming, slovenly, close, 
tumble-down, eastern old town, that forms the outport of Cairo, and 
was built before the importation of European taste and discipline. 

Here we alighted upon donkeys, to the full as brisk as those 
of Alexandria, invaluable to timid riders, and equal to any weight. 
We had a Jerusalem pony race into Cairo ; my animal beating all the 
rest by many lengths. The entrance to the capital, from Boulak, is 
very pleasant and picturesque — over a fair road, and the wide-planted 
plain of the Ezbekieh ; where are gardens, canals, fields, and avenues 
of trees, and where the great ones of the town come and take their 
pleasure. We saw many barouches driving about with fat Pashas 
lolling on the cushions ; stately-looking colonels and doctors taking 
their ride, followed by their orderlies or footmen ; lines of people 
taking pipes and sherbet in the coffee-houses ; and one of the 
pleasantest sights of all, — a fine new white building with Hotel 
d'Orient written up in huge French characters, and which, indeed, 
is an establishment as large and comfortable as most of the best inns 
of the South of France. As a hundred Christian people, or more, 
come from England and from India every fortnight, this inn has been 
built to accommodate a large proportion of them ; and twice a 
month, at least, its sixty rooms are full. 

The gardens from the windows give a very pleasant and animated 
view: the hotel-gate is besieged by crews of donkey-drivers; the 
noble stately Arab women, with tawny skins (of which a simple robe 
of floating blue cotton enables you liberally to see the colour) and 
large black eyes, come to the well hard by for water : camels are 
perpetually arriving and setting down their loads : the court is full of 
bustling dragomans, ayahs, and children from India ; and poor old 
venerable he-nurses, with gray beards and crimson turbans, tending 
little white-faced babies that have seen the light at Dumdum or 
Futtyghur : a copper-coloured barber, seated on his hams, is shaving 
a camel-driver at the great inn-gate. The bells are ringing prodigi- 
ously ; and Lieutenant Waghorn is bouncing in and out of the court- 
yard full of business. He only left Bombay yesterday morning, was 
seen in the Red Sea on Tuesday, is engaged to dinner this afternoon 
in the Regent's Park, and (as it is about two minutes since I saw him 
in the court-yard) I make no doubt he is by this time at Alexandria 



490 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

or at Malta, say, perhaps, at both. II en est capable. If any man 
can be at two places at once (which I don't believe or deny) 
Waghorn is he. 

Six-o'clock bell rings. Sixty people sit down to a quasi French 
banquet : thirty Indian officers in moustaches and jackets ; ten 
civilians in ditto and spectacles ; ten pale-faced ladies with ringlets, 
to whom all pay prodigious attention. All the pale ladies drink pale 
ale, which, perhaps, accounts for it; in fact the Bombay and Suez 
passengers have just arrived, and hence this crowding and bustling, 
and display of military jackets and moustaches, and ringlets and 
beauty. The windows are open, and a rush of mosquitoes from the 
Ezbekieh waters, attracted by the wax-candles, adds greatly to the 
excitement of the scene. There was a little tough old Major, who 
persisted in flinging open the windows, to admit these volatile crea- 
tures, with a noble disregard to their sting — and the pale ringlets did 
not seem to heed them either, though the delicate shoulders of some 
of them were bare. 

All the meat, ragouts, fricandeaux, and roasts, which are served 
round at dinner, seem to me to be of the same meat : a black uncer- 
tain sort of viand do these "fleshpots of Egypt" contain. But 
what the meat is no one knew : is it the donkey ? The animal is 
more plentiful than any other in Cairo. 

After dinner, the ladies retiring, some of us take a mixture of hot 
water, sugar, and pale French brandy, which is said to be deleterious, 
but is by no means unpalatable. One of the Indians offers a bundle 
of Bengal cheroots ; and we make acquaintance with those honest 
bearded white-jacketed Majors and military Commanders, finding 
England here in a French hotel kept by an Italian, . at the city of 
Grand Cairo, in Africa. 

On retiring to bed you take a towel with you into the sacred 
interior, behind the mosquito curtains. Then your duty is, having 
tucked the curtains closely around, to flap and bang violently with 
this towel, right and left, and backwards and forwards, until every 
mosquito shall have been massacred that may have taken refuge 
within your muslin canopy. 

Do what you will, however, one of them always escapes the 
murder ; and as soon as the candle is out the miscreant begins his 
infernal droning and trumpeting ; descends playfully upon your nose 
and face, and so lightly that you don't know that he touches you. 



THE CONQUEROR WAGHORN. 491 

But that for a week afterwards you bear about marks of his ferocity, 
you might take the invisible little being to be a creature of fancy — 
a mere singing in your ears. 

This, as an account of Cairo, dear M , you will probably be 

disposed to consider as incomplete : the fact is, I have seen nothing 
else as yet. I have peered into no harems. The magicians, proved 
to be humbugs, have been bastinadoed out of town. The dancing- 
girls, those lovely Alme, of whom I had hoped to be able to give 
a glowing and elegant, though strictly moral, description, have been 
whipped into Upper Egypt, and as you are saying in your mind .... 
Well, it isn't a good description of Cairo ; you are perfectly right. It 
is England in Egypt. I like to see her there with her pluck, enter- 
prise, manliness, bitter ale, and Harvey sauce. Wherever they come 
they stay and prosper. From the summit of yonder Pyramids forty 
centuries may look down on them if they are minded ; and I say, 
those venerable daughters of time ought to be better pleased by the 
examination, than by regarding the French bayonets and General 
Bonaparte, Member of the Institute, fifty years ago, running about 
with sabre and pigtail. Wonders he did, to be sure, and then ran 
away, leaving Kleber, to be murdered, in the lurch — a few hundred 
yards from the spot where these disquisitions are written. But what 
are his wonders oompared to Waghorn ? Nap massacred the 
Mamelukes at the Pyramids : Wag has conquered the Pyramids 
themselves ; dragged the unwieldy structures a month nearer England 
than they were, and brought the country along with them. All the 
trophies and captives that ever were brought to Roman triumph 
were not so enormous and wonderful as this. All the heads that 
Napoleon ever caused to be struck off (as George Cruikshank says) 
would not elevate him a monument as big. Be ours the trophies of 
peace ! O my country ! O Waghorn ! H<z tibi erunt artes. When 
I go to the Pyramids I will sacrifice in your name, and pour out 
libations of bitter ale and Harvey sauce in your honour. 

One of the noblest views in the world is to be seen from the 
citadel, which we ascended to-day. You see the city stretching 
beneath it, with a thousand minarets and mosques, — the great river 
curling through the green plains, studded with innumerable villages. 
The Pyramids are beyond, brilliantly distinct; and the lines and 
fortifications of the height, and the arsenal lying below. Gazing 
down, the guide does not fail to point out the famous Mameluke leap, 



492 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

by which one of the corps escaped death, at the time that his Highness 
the Pasha arranged the general massacre of the body. 

The venerable Patriarch's harem is close by, where he received, 
with much distinction, some of the members of our party. We were 
allowed to pass very close to the sacred precincts, and saw a com- 
fortable white European building, approached by flights of steps, and 
flanked by pretty gardens. Police and law-courts were here also, as 
I understood ; but it was not the time of the Egyptian assizes. It 
would have been pleasant, otherwise, to see the chief cadi in his hall 
of justice; and painful, though instructive, to behold the immediate 
application of the bastinado. 

The great lion of the place is a new mosque which Mehemet 
Ali is constructing very leisurely. It is built of alabaster of a fair 
white, with a delicate blushing tinge ; but the ornaments are European 
— the noble, fantastic, beautiful Oriental art is forgotten. The old 
mosques of the city, of which I entered two, and looked at many, are 
a thousand times more beautiful. Their variety of ornament is 
astonishing, — the difference in the shapes of the domes, the beautiful 
fancies and caprices in the forms of the minarets, which violate the 
rules of proportion with the most happy, daring grace, must have 
struck every architect who has seen them. As you go through the 
streets, these architectural beauties keep the eye continually charmed : 
now it is a marble fountain, with its arabesque and carved over- 
hanging roof, which you can look at with as much pleasure as an 
antique gem, so neat and brilliant is the execution of it ; then, you 
come to the arched entrance to a mosque, which shoots up like — like 
what ? — like the most beautiful pirouette by Taglioni, let us say. 
This architecture is not sublimely beautiful, perfect loveliness and 
calm, like that which was revealed to us at the Parthenon (and in 
comparison of which the Pantheon and Colosseum are vulgar and 
coarse, mere broad-shouldered Titans before ambrosial Jove) ; but 
these fantastic spires, and cupolas, and galleries, excite, amuse, tickle 
the imagination, so to speak, and perpetually fascinate the eye. 
There were very few believers in the famous mosque of Sultan 
Hassan when we visited it, except the Moslemitish beadle, who was 
on the look-out for backsheesh, just like his brother officer in an 
English cathedral ; and who, making us put on straw slippers, so as 
not to pollute the sacred pavement of the place, conducted us 
through it. 



THE MOSQUE OF HASSAN. 493 

It is stupendously light and airy ; the best specimens of Norman 
art that I have seen (and surely the Crusaders must have carried 
home the models of these heathenish temples in their eyes) do not 
exceed its noble grace and simplicity. The mystics make discoveries 
at home, that the Gothic architecture is Catholicism carved in stone — 
(in which case, and if architectural beauty is a criterion or expression 
of religion, what a dismal barbarous creed must that expressed by 
the Bethesda meeting-house and Independent chapels be?) — if, as 
they would gravely hint, because Gothic architecture is beautiful, 
Catholicism is therefore lovely and right, — why, Mahometanism 
must have been right and lovely too once. Never did a creed 
possess temples more elegant j as elegant as the Cathedral at Rouen, 
or the Baptistery at Pisa. 

But it is changed now. There was nobody at prayers ; only 
the official beadles, and the supernumerary guides, who came for 
backsheesh. Faith hath degenerated. Accordingly they can't build 
these mosques, or invent these perfect forms, any more. Wit- 
ness the tawdry incompleteness and vulgarity of the Pasha's new 
temple, and the woful failures among the very late edifices in Constan- 
tinople ! 

However, they still make pilgrimages to Mecca in great force. 
The Mosque of Hassan is hard by the green plain on which the Hag 
encamps before it sets forth annually on its pious peregrination. It 
was not yet its time, but I saw in the bazaars that redoubted Dervish, 
who is the Master of the Hag — the leader of every procession, 
accompanying the sacred camel ; and a personage almost as much 
respected as Mr. O'Connell in Ireland. 

This fellow lives by alms (I mean the head of the Hag). Winter 
and summer he wears no clothes but a thin and scanty white shirt. 
He wields a staff, and stalks along scowling and barefoot. His 
immense shock of black hair streams behind him, and his brown, 
brawny body is curled over with black hair, like a savage man. This 
saint has the largest harem in the town ; he is said to be enormously 
rich by the contributions he has levied ; and is so adored for his 
holiness by the infatuated folk, that when he returns from the Hag 
(which he does on horseback, the chief Mollahs going out to meet 
him and escort him home in state along the Ezbekieh road,) the 
people fling themselves down under the horse's feet, eager to be 
trampled upon and killed, and confident of heaven if the great 



494 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

Hadji's horse will but kick them into it. Was it my fault if I thought 
of Hadji Daniel, and the believers in him ? 

There was no Dervish of repute on the plain when I passed ; 
only one poor, wild fellow, who was dancing, with glaring eyes and 
grizzled beard, rather to the contempt of the bystanders, as I 
thought, who by no means put coppers into his extended bowl. On 
this poor devil's head there was a poorer devil still — a live cock, 
entirely plucked, but ornamented with some bits of ragged tape and 
scarlet and tinsel, the most horribly grotesque and miserable object I 
ever saw. 

A little way from him, there was a sort of play going on — a clown 
and a knowing one, like Widdicombe and the clown with us, — the 
buffoon answering with blundering responses, which made all the 
audience shout with laughter ; but the only joke which was translated 
to me would make you do anything but laugh, and shall therefore 
never be revealed by these lips. All their humour, my dragoman 
tells me, is of this questionable sort ; and a young Egyptian gentle- 
man, son of a Pasha, whom I subsequently met at Malta, confirmed 
the statement, and gave a detail of the practices of private life which 
was anything but edifying. The great aim of woman, he said, in 
the much-maligned Orient, is to administer to the brutality of her 
lord ; her merit is in knowing how to vary the beast's pleasures. He 
could give us no idea, he said, of the 7vit of the Egyptian women, 
and their skill in double, entendre; nor, I presume, did we lose much 
by our ignorance. What I would urge, humbly, however, is this — 
Do not let us be led away by German writers and aesthetics, Semilas- 
soisms, Hahnhahnisms, and the like. The life of the East is a life 
of brutes. The much-maligned Orient, I am confident, has not been 
maligned near enough ; for the good reason that none of us can tell 
the amount of horrible sensuality practised there. 

Beyond the jack-pudding rascal and his audience, there was on 
the green a spot, on which was pointed out to me a mark, as of 
blood. That morning the blood had spouted from the neck of an 
Arnaoot soldier, who had been executed for murder. These Arnaoots 
are the curse and terror of the citizens. Their camps are without the 
city ; but they are always brawling, or drunken, or murdering within, 
in spite of the rigid law which is applied to them, and which brings 
one or more of the scoundrels to death almost every week. 

Some of our party had seen this fellow borne by the hotel the day 



A STREET-SCENE. 495 

before, in the midst of a crowd of soldiers who had apprehended 
him. The man was still formidable to his score of captors ; his 
clothes had been torn off; his limbs were bound with cords ; but he 
was struggling frantically to get free ; and my informant described 
the figure and appearance of the naked, bound, writhing savage, as 
quite a model of beauty. 

Walking in the street, this fellow had just before been struck by 
the looks of a woman who was passing, and laid hands on her. She 
ran away, and he pursued her. She ran into the police-barrack, which 
was luckily hard by; but the Arnaootwas nothing daunted, and followed 
into the midst of the police. One of them tried to stop him. The 
Arnaoot pulled out a pistol, and shot the policeman dead. He cut 
down three or four more before he was secured. He knew his inevitable 
end must be death : that he could not seize upon the woman : that he 
could not hope to resist half a regiment of armed soldiers : yet his 
instinct of lust and murder was too strong ; and so he had his head 
taken off quite calmly this morning, many of his comrades attending 
their brother's last moments. He cared not the least about dying ; 
and knelt down and had his head off as coolly as if he were looking on 
at the same ceremony performed on another. 

When the head was off, and the blood was spouting on the ground, 
a married woman, who had no children, came forward very eagerly 
out of the crowd, to smear herself with it, — the application of criminals' 
blood being considered a very favourable medicine for women afflicted 
with barrenness, — so she indulged in this remedy. 

But one of the Amaoots standing near said, "What, you like 
blood, do you ?" (or words to that effect). " Let's see how yours mixes 
with my comrade's." And thereupon, taking out a pistol, he shot the 
woman in the midst of the crowd and the guards who were attending 
the execution ; was seized of course by the latter ; and no doubt to- 
morrow morning will have his head off too. It would be a good 
chapter to write — the Death of the Arnaoot — but I sha'n't go. Seeing 
one man hanged is quite enough in the course of a life. J'y ai tie, 
as the Frenchman said of hunting. 

These Arnaoots are the terror of the town. They seized hold of 
an Englishman the other day, and were very nearly pistolling him. 
Last week one of them murdered a shopkeeper at Boulak, who 
refused to sell him a water-melon at a price which he, the soldier, 
fixed upon it. So, for the matter of three-halfpence, he killed the 



496 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

shopkeeper ; and had his own rascally head chopped off, universally 
regretted by his friends. Why, I wonder, does not his Highness 
the Pasha invite the Arnaoots to a dejetme at the Citadel, as he did 
the Mamelukes, and serve them up the same sort of breakfast ? 
The walls are considerably heightened since Emin Bey and his 
horse leapt them, and it is probable that not one of them would 
escape. 

This sort of pistol practice is common enough here, it would 
appear ; and not among the Arnaoots merely, but the higher orders. 
Thus, a short time since, one of his Highness's grandsons, whom I 
shall call Bluebeard Pasha (lest a revelation of the name of the said 
Pasha might interrupt our good relations with his country) — one of 
the young Pashas being backward rather in his education, and anxious 
to learn mathematics, and the elegant deportment of civilized life, 
sent to England for a tutor. I have heard he was a Cambridge man, 
and had learned both algebra and politeness under the Reverend 
Doctor Whizzle, of College. 

One day when Mr. Mac Whirter, B.A., was walking in Shoubra 
gardens, with his Highness the young Bluebeard Pasha, inducting him 
into the usages of polished society, and favouring him with reminis- 
cences of Trumpington, there came up a poor fellah, who flung him- 
self at the feet of young Bluebeard, and calling for justice in a loud 
and pathetic voice, and holding out a petition, besought his Highness 
to cast a gracious eye upon the same, and see that his slave had 
justice done him. 

Bluebeard Pasha was so deeply engaged and interested by his 
respected tutor's conversation, that he told the poor fellah to go to 
the deuce, and resumed the discourse which his ill-timed outcry for 
justice had interrupted. But the unlucky wight of a fellah was pushed 
by his evil destiny, and thought he would make yet another applica- 
tion. So he took a short cut down one of the garden lanes, and as 
the Prince and the Reverend Mr. Mac Whirter, his tutor, came along 
once more engaged in pleasant disquisition, behold the fellah was 
once more in their way, kneeling at the august Bluebeard's feet, yelling 
out for justice as before, and thrusting his petition into the royal face. 

When the Prince's conversation was thus interrupted a second 
time, his royal patience and clemency were at an end. " Man," said 
he, " once before I bade thee not to pester me with thy clamour, and 
lo ! you have disobeyed me, — take the consequences of disobedience 



A GRACIOUS PRINCE. 497 

to a Prince, and thy blood be upon thine own head." So saying, he 
drew out a pistol and blew out the brains of that fellah, so that he 
never bawled out for justice any more. 

The Reverend Mr. Mac Whirter was astonished at this sudden 
mode of proceeding : " Gracious Prince," said he, " we do not shoot 
an undergraduate at Cambridge even for walking over a college grass- 
plot. — Let me suggest to your Royal Highness that this method of 
ridding yourself of a poor devil's importunities is such as we should 
consider abrupt and almost cruel in Europe. Let me beg you to 
moderate your royal impetuosity for the future ; and, as your High- 
ness's tutor, entreat you to be a little less prodigal of your powder 
and shot." 

"O Mollah ! " said his Highness, here interrupting his governor's 
affectionate appeal, — " you are good to talk about Trumpington and 
the Pons Asinorum, but if you interfere with the course of justice in 
any way, or prevent me from shooting any dog of an Arab who snarls 
at my heels, I have another pistol ; and, by the beard of the Prophet ! 
a bullet for you too." So saying he pulled out the weapon, with such 
a terrific and significant glance at the Reverend Mr. Mac Whirter, that 
that gentleman wished himself back in his Combination Room again ; 
and is by this time, let us hope, safely housed there. 

Anther facetious anecdote, the last of those I had from a well- 
informed gentleman residing at Cairo, whose name (as many copies 
of this book that is to be will be in the circulating libraries there) 
I cannot, for obvious reasons, mention. The revenues of the 
country come into the august treasury through the means of farmers, 
to whom the districts are let out, and who are personally answerable 
for their quota of the taxation. This practice involves an intolerable 
deal of tyranny and extortion on the part of those engaged to levy 
the taxes, and creates a corresponding duplicity among the fellahs, 
who are not only wretchedly poor among themselves, but whose 
object is to appear still more poor, and guard their money from their 
rapacious overseers. Thus the Orient is much maligned ; but every- 
body cheats there : that is a melancholy fact. The Pasha robs and 
cheats the merchants ; knows that the overseer robs him, and bides 
his time, until he makes him disgorge by the application of the 
tremendous bastinado ; the overseer robs and squeezes the labourer ; 
and the poverty-stricken devil cheats and robs in return ; and so 
the government moves in a happy cycle of roguery. 

32 



498 A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

Deputations from the fellahs and peasants come perpetually 
before the august presence, to complain of the cruelty and exactions 
of the chiefs set over them : but, as it is known that the Arab 
never will pay without the bastinado, their complaints, for the most 
part, meet with but little attention. His Highness's treasury must 
be filled, and his officers supported in their authority. 

However, there was one village, of which the complaints were 
so pathetic, and the inhabitants so supremely wretched, that the 
royal indignation was moved at their story, and the chief of the 
village, Skinflint Beg, was called to give an account of himself 
at Cairo. 

When he came before the presence, Mehemet Ali reproached 
him with his horrible cruelty and exactions ; asked him how he dared 
to treat his faithful and beloved subjects in this way, and threatened 
him with disgrace, and the utter confiscation of his property, for thus 
having reduced a district to ruin. 

" Your Highness says I have reduced these fellahs to ruin," said 
Skinflint Beg ; " what is the best way to confound my enemies, and 
to show you the falsehood of their accusations that I have ruined 
them ? — To bring more money from them. If I bring you five 
hundred purses from my village, will you acknowledge that my 
people are not ruined yet ? " 

The heart of the Pasha was touched : " I will have no more basti- 
nadoing, O Skinflint Beg ; you have tortured these poor people so 
much, and have got so little from them, that my royal heart relents 
for the present, and I will have them suffer no farther." 

" Give me free leave — give me your Highness's gracious pardon, 
and I will bring the five hundred purses as surely as my name is 
Skinflint Beg. I demand only the time to go home, the time to 
return, and a few days to stay, and I will come back as honestly as 
Regulus Pasha did to the Carthaginians, — I will come back and 
make my face white before your Highness." 

Skinflint Beg's prayer for a reprieve was granted, and he returned 
to his village, where he forthwith called the elders together. "O 
friends," he said, " complaints of our poverty and misery have reached 
the royal throne, and the benevolent heart of the sovereign has been 
melted by the words that have been poured into his ears. ' My 
heart yearns towards my people of El Muddee,' he says ; ' I have 
thought how to relieve their miseries. Near them lies the fruitful 



THE "RINT" IN EGYPT. 499 

land of El Guanee. It is rich in maize and cotton, in sesame and 
barley ; it is worth a thousand purses ; but I will let it to my children 
for seven hundred, and I will give over the rest of the profit to them, 
as an alleviation for their affliction.' " 

The elders of El Muddee knew the great value and fertility of 
the lands of Guanee, but they doubted the sincerity of their governor, 
who, however, dispelled their fears, and adroitly quickened their 
eagerness to close with the proffered bargain. " I will myself advance 
two hundred and fifty purses," he said ; " do you take counsel among 
yourselves, and subscribe the other five hundred ; and when the 
sum is ready, a deputation of you shall carry it to Cairo, and I will 
come with my share ; and we will lay the whole at the feet of his 
Highness." So the gray-bearded ones of the village advised with 
one another ; and those who had been inaccessible to bastinadoes, 
somehow found money at the calling of interest ; and the Sheikh, 
and they, and the five hundred purses, set off on the road to 
the capital. 

When they arrived, Skinflint Beg and the elders of El Muddee 
sought admission to the royal throne, and there laid down their 
purses. " Here is your humble servant's contribution," said Skinflint, 
producing his share ; " and here is the offering of your loyal village 
of El Muddee. Did I not before say that enemies and deceivers 
had maligned me before the august presence, pretending that not 
a piastre was left in my village, and that my extortion had entirely 
denuded the peasantry ? See ! here is proof that there is plenty 
of money still in El Muddee : in twelve hours the elders have 
subscribed five hundred purses, and lay them at the feet of 
their lord." 

Instead of the bastinado, Skinflint Beg was instantly rewarded 
with the royal favour, and the former mark of attention was bestowed 
upon the fellahs who had maligned him ; Skinflint Beg was promoted 
to the rank of Skinflint Bey ; .and his manner of extracting money 
from his people may be studied with admiration in a part of the 
United Kingdom.* 

At the time of the Syrian quarrel, and when, apprehending 
some general rupture with England, the Pasha wished to raise the 

* At Derrynane Beg, for instance. 



500 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

spirit of the fellahs, and relever la morale nationale, he actually made 
one of the astonished Arabs a colonel. He degraded him three days 
after peace was concluded. The young Egyptian colonel, who told 
me this, laughed and enjoyed the joke with the utmost gusto. " Is 
it not a shame,"' he said, " to make me a colonel at three-and-twenty ; 
I, who have no particular merit, and have never seen any service ? " 
Death has since stopped the modest and good-natured young fellow's 

further promotion. The death of Bey was announced in the 

French papers a few weeks back. 

My above kind-hearted and agreeable young informant used to 
discourse, in our evenings in the Lazaretto at Malta, very eloquently 
about the beauty of his wife, whom he had left behind him at Cairo 
— her brown hair, her brilliant complexion, and her blue eyes. It 
is this Circassian blood, I suppose, to which the Turkish aristocracy 
that governs Egypt must be indebted for the fairness of their skin. 
Ibrahim Pasha, riding by in his barouche, looked like a bluff, jolly- 
faced English dragoon officer, with a gray moustache and red cheeks, 
such as you might see on a field-day at Maidstone. All the 
numerous officials riding through the town were quite as fair as 
Europeans. We made acquaintance with one dignitary, a very jovial 
and fat Pasha, the proprietor of the inn, I believe, who was con- 
tinually lounging about the Ezbekieh garden, and who, but for a 
slight Jewish cast of countenance, might have passed any day for a 
Frenchman. The ladies whom we saw were equally fair; that is, 
the very slight particles of the persons of ladies which our lucky 
eyes were permitted to gaze on. These lovely creatures go through 
the town by parties of three or four, mounted on donkeys, and 
attended by slaves holding on at the crupper, to receive the lovely 
riders lest they should fall, and shouting out shrill cries of " Schma- 
alek," "Ameenek" (or however else these words may be pro- 
nounced), and flogging off the people right and left with the buffalo- 
thong. But the dear creatures are even more closely disguised than 
at Constantinople : their bodies are enveloped with a large black 
silk hood, like a cab-head ; the fashion seemed to be to spread their 
arms out, and give this covering all the amplitude of which it was 
capable, as they leered and ogled you from under their black masks 
with their big rolling eyes. 

Everybody has big rolling eyes here (unless, to be sure, they lose 
one of ophthalmia). The Arab women are some of the noblest 



SUBJECTS FOR PAINTERS. 501 

figures I have ever seen. The habit of carrying jars on the head 
always gives the figure grace and motion ; and the dress the 
women wear certainly displays it to full advantage. I have brought 
a complete one home with me, at the service of any lady for a 
masqued ball. It consists of a coarse blue dress of calico, opened 
in front, and fastened with a horn button. Three yards of blue stuff 
for a veil ; on the top of the veil a jar to be balanced on the head ; 
and a little black strip of silk to fall over the nose, and leave the 
beautiful eyes full liberty to roll and roam. But such a costume, not 
aided by any stays or any other article of dress whatever, can be 
worn only by a very good figure. I suspect it won't be borrowed for 
many balls next season. 

The men, a tall, handsome, noble race,*are treated like dogs. I 
shall never forget riding through the crowded bazaars, my interpreter, 
or laquais-de-place, ahead of me to clear the way — when he took his 
whip and struck it over the shoulders of a man who could not or 
would not make way ! 

The man turned round — an old, venerable, handsome face, with 
awfully sad eyes, and a beard long and quite gray. He did not 
make the least complaint, but slunk out of the way, piteously shaking 
his shoulder. The sight of that indignity gave me a sickening feeling 
of disgust. I shouted out to the cursed lackey to hold his hand, and 
forbade him ever in my presence to strike old or young more ; but 
everybody is doing it. The whip is in everybody's hands : the 
Pasha's running footman, as he goes bustling through the bazaar; 
the doctor's attendant, as he soberly threads the crowd on his mare ; 
the negro slave, who is riding by himself, the most insolent of all, 
strikes and slashes about without mercy, and you never hear a 
single complaint. 

How to describe the beauty of the streets to you ! — the fantastic 
splendour; the variety of the houses, and archways, and hanging 
roofs, and balconies, and porches ; the delightful accidents of light 
and shade which chequer them ; the noise, the bustle, the brilliancy 
of the crowd ; the interminable vast bazaars with their barbaric 
splendour ! There is a fortune to be made for painters in Cairo, and 
materials for a whole Academy of them. I never saw such a variety 
of architecture, of life, of picturesqueness, of brilliant colour, and 
light and shade. There is a picture in every street, and at every 
bazaar stall. Some of these our celebrated water-colour painter, 



502 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

Mr. Lewis, has produced with admirable truth and exceeding 
minuteness and beauty ; but there is room for a hundred to follow 
him; and should any artist (by some rare occurrence) read this, 
who has leisure, and wants to break new ground, let him take heart, 
and try a winter in Cairo, where there is the finest climate and the 
best subjects for his pencil. 

A series of studies of negroes alone would form a picture-book, 
delightfully grotesque. Mounting my donkey to-day, I took a ride 
to the desolate, noble old buildings outside the city, known as the 
Tombs of the Caliphs. Every one of these edifices, with their domes, 
and courts, and minarets, is strange and beautiful. In one of them 
there was an encampment of negro slaves newly arrived : some 
scores of them were huddled against the sunny wall ; two or three of 
their masters lounged about the court, or lay smoking upon carpets. 
There was one of these fellows, a straight-nosed, ebony-faced 
Abyssinian, with an expression of such sinister good-humour in his 
handsome face as would form a perfect type of villany. He sat 
leering at me, over his carpet, as I endeavoured to get a sketch of 
that incarnate rascality. " Give me some money," said the fellow. 
" I know what you are about. You will sell my picture for money 
when you get back to Europe ; let me have some of it now ! " But 
the very rude and humble designer was quite unequal to depict 
such a consummation and perfection of roguery ; so flung him 
a cigar, which he began to smoke, grinning at the giver. I 
requested the interpreter to inform him, by way of assurance of 
my disinterestedness, that his face was a great deal too ugly to be 
popular in Europe, and that was the particular reason why I had 
selected it. 

Then one of his companions got up and showed us his black 
cattle. The male slaves were chiefly lads, and the women young, 
well formed, and abominably hideous. The dealer pulled her blanket 
off one of them and bade her stand up, which she did with a great 
deal of shuddering modesty. She was coal black, her lips were 
the size of sausages, her eyes large and good-humoured ; the hair 
or wool on this young person's head was curled and greased into 
a thousand filthy little ringlets. She was evidently the beauty of 
the flock. 

They are not unhappy ; they look to being bought, as many a 
spinster looks to an establishment in England ; once in a family they 



IN THE DESERT. 



503 



are kindly treated and well clothed, and fatten, and are the merriest 
people of the whole community. These were of a much more 
savage sort than the slaves I had seen in the horrible market at 
Constantinople, where I recollect the following young creature — 




(indeed it is a very fair likeness of her) whilst I was looking at her 
and forming pathetic conjectures regarding her fate — smiling very 
good-humouredly, and bidding the interpreter ask me to buy her for 
twenty pounds. 

From these Tombs of the Caliphs the Desert is before you. It 
comes up to the walls of the city, and stops at some gardens which 
spring up all of a sudden at its edge. You can see the first Station- 
house on the Suez Road ; and so from distance point to point, could 
ride thither alone without a guide. 

Asinus trotted gallantly into this desert for the space of a quarter 
of an hour. There we were (taking care to keep our backs to the 
city walls), in the real actual desert : mounds upon mounds of sand, 
stretching away as far as the eye can see, until the dreary prospect 
fades away in the yellow horizon ! I had formed a finer idea of it 
out of " Eothen." Perhaps in a simoom it may look more awful. 
The only adventure that befell in this romantic place was that 
asinus's legs went deep into a hole : whereupon his rider went over 
his head, and bit the sand, and measured his length there ; and upon, 
this hint rose up, and rode home again. No doubt one should have 



504 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

gone out for a couple of days' march — as it was, the desert did not 
seem to me sublime, only uncomfortable. 

Very soon after this perilous adventure the sun likewise dipped 
into the sand (but not to rise therefrom so quickly as I had done) ; 
and I saw this daily phenomenon of sunset with pleasure, for I was 

engaged at that hour to dine with our old friend J , who has 

established himself here in the most complete Oriental fashion. 

You remember J , and what a dandy he was, the faultlessness 

of his boots and cravats, the brilliancy of his waistcoats and kid- 
gloves ; we have seen his splendour in Regent Street, in the Tuil- 
eries, or on the Toledo. My first object on arriving here was to find 
out his house, which he has taken far away from the haunts of Euro- 
pean civilization, in the Arab quarter. It is situated in a cool, shady, 
narrow alley ; so narrow, that it was with great difficulty — his High- 
ness Ibrahim Pasha happening to pass at the same moment — that my 
little procession of two donkeys, mounted by self and valet-de-place, 
with the two donkey-boys our attendants, could range ourselves along 
the wall, and leave room for the august cavalcade. His Highness 
having rushed on (with an affable and good-humoured salute to our 
imposing party), we made J.'s quarters ; and, in the first place, 
entered a broad covered court or porch, where a swarthy, tawny 
attendant, dressed in blue, with white turban, keeps a perpetual 
watch. Servants in the East lie about all the doors, it appears ; and 
you clap your hands, as they do in the dear old " Arabian Nights," 
to summon them. 

This servant disappeared through a narrow wicket, which he 
closed after him ; and went into the inner chambers to ask if his lord 
would receive us. He came back presently, and rising up from my 
donkey, I confided him to his attendant, (lads more sharp, arch, and 
wicked than these donkey-boys don't walk the pave of Paris or 
London,) and passed the mysterious outer door. 

First we came into a broad open court, with a covered gallery 
running along one side of it. A camel was reclining on the grass 
there ; near him was a gazelle, to glad J. with his dark blue eye ; and 
a numerous brood of hens and chickens, who furnish his liberal table. 
On the opposite side cf the covered gallery rose up the walls of his 
long, queer, many-windowed, many-galleried house. There were 
wooden lattices to those arched windows, through the diamonds of 
one of which I saw two of the most beautiful, enormous, ogling, 



A HYDE PARK MOSLEM. 



305 



black eyes in the world, looking down upon the interesting stranger. 
Pigeons were flapping, and hopping, and fluttering, and cooing about 




Happy pigeons, you are, no doubt, fed with crumbs from the henne- 
tipped fingers of Zuleika ! All this court, cheerful in the sunshine, 
cheerful with the astonishing brilliancy of the eyes peering out from 
the lattice bars, was as mouldy, ancient, and ruinous — as any gentle- 
man's house in Ireland, let us say. The paint was peeling off the 
rickety old carved galleries ; the arabesques over the windows 
were chipped and worn ; — the ancientness of the place rendered 
it doubly picturesque. I have detained you a long time in the 
outer court. Why the deuce was Zuleika there, with the beautiful 
black eyes ! 

Hence we passed into a large apartment, where there was a 
fountain ; and another domestic made his appearance, taking me in 
charge, and relieving the tawny porter of the gate. This fellow was 
clad in blue too, with a red sash and a gray beard. He conducted 
me into a great hall, where there was a great, large Saracenic oriel 
window. He seated me on a divan ; and stalking off, for a moment, 
returned with a long pipe and a brass chafing-dish : he blew the coal 
for the pipe, which he motioned me to smoke, and left me there with 
a respectful bow. This delay, this mystery of servants, that outer 



506 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

court with the camels, gazelles, and other beautiful-eyed things, 
affected me prodigiously all the time he was staying away ; and while 
I was examining the strange apartment and its contents, my respect 
and awe for the owner increased vastly. 

As you will be glad to know how an Oriental nobleman (such as 
J. undoubtedly is) is lodged and garnished, let me describe the con- 
tents of this hall of audience. It is about forty feet long, and 
eighteen or twenty high. All the ceiling is carved, gilt, painted and 
embroidered with arabesques, and choice sentences of Eastern 
writing. Some Mameluke Aga, or Bey, whom Mehemet Ali invited 
to breakfast and massacred, was the proprietor of this mansion once : 
it has grown dingier, but, perhaps, handsomer, since his time. 
Opposite the divan is a. great bay-window, with a divan likewise 
round the niche. It looks out upon a garden about the size of 
Fountain Court, Temple ; surrounded by the tall houses of the 
quarter. The garden is full of green. A great palm-tree springs 
up in the midst, with plentiful shrubberies, and a talking fountain. 
The room beside the divan is furnished with one deal table, value 
five shillings ; four wooden chairs, value six shillings ; and a couple 
of mats and carpets. The tables and chairs are luxuries imported 
from Europe. The regular Oriental dinner is put upon copper 

trays, which are laid upon low stools. Hence J ■ Effendi's house 

may be said to be much more sumptuously furnished than those of 
the Beys and Agas his neighbours. 

When these things had been examined at leisure, J appeared. 

Could it be the exquisite of the " Europa " and the " Trois Freres ? " 
A man — in a long yellow gown, with a long beard somewhat tinged 
with gray, with his head shaved, and wearing on it first a white 
wadded cotton nightcap, second, a red tarboosh — made his appear- 
ance and welcomed me cordially. It was some time, as the Americans 
say, before I could " realise " the semillant J. of old times. 

He shuffled off his outer slippers before he curled up on the 
divan beside me. He clapped his hands, and languidly called 
" Mustapha." Mustapha came with more lights, pipes, and coffee ; 
and then we fell to talking about London, and I gave him the last 
news of the comrades in that dear city. As we talked, his Oriental 
coolness and languor gave way to British cordiality ; he was the most 
amusing companion of the club once more. 

He has adopted himself outwardly, however, to the Oriental life. 



AN EASTERN ACQUAINTANCE. 



507 



When he goes abroad he rides a gray horse with red housings, and 
has two servants to walk beside him. He wears a very handsome, 
grave costume of dark blue, consisting of an embroidered jacket and 
gaiters, and a pair of trousers, which would make a set of dresses for 
an English family. His beard curls nobly over his chest, his 
Damascus scimitar on his thigh. His red cap gives him a venerable 
and Bey-like appearance. There is no gewgaw or parade about him, 
as in some of your dandified young Agas. I should say that he is a 
Major-General of Engineers, or a grave officer of State. We and the 
Turkified European, who found us at dinner, sat smoking in solemn 
divan. 




His dinners were excellent ; they were cooked by a regular 
Egyptian female cook. We had delicate cucumbers stuffed with 
forced-meats ; yellow smoking pilaffs, the pride of the Oriental 
cuisine ; kid and fowls a l'Aboukir and a la Pyramide : a number of 
little savoury plates of legumes of the vegetable-marrow sort : kibobs 
with an excellent sauce of plums and piquant herbs. We ended the 
repast with ruby pomegranates, pulled to pieces, deliciously cool and 
pleasant. For the meats, we certainly ate them with the Infidel knife 
and fork; but for the fruit, we put our hands into the dish and flicked 
them into our mouths in what cannot but be the true Oriental manner. , 
I asked for lamb and pistachio-nuts, and cream-tarts au poivre; but 



So8- A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

J.'s cook did not furnish us with either of those historic dishes. And 
for drink, we had water freshened in the porous little pots of gray 
clay, at whose spout every traveller in the East has sucked delighted. 
Also, it must be confessed, we drank certain sherbets, prepared by the 
two great rivals, Hadji Hodson and Bass Bey — the bitterest and most 
delicious of draughts ! O divine Hodson ! a camel's load of thy beer 
came from Beyrout to Jerusalem while we were there. How shall I 
ever forget the joy inspired by one of those foaming cool flasks ? 

We don't know the luxury of thirst in English climes. Sedentary 
men in cities at least have seldom ascertained it; but when they travel, 
our countrymen guard against it well. The road between Cairo and 
Suez is jonche with soda-water corks. Tom Thumb and his brothers 
might track their way across the desert by those landmarks. 

Cairo is magnificently picturesque ; it is fine to have palm-trees in 
your gardens, and ride about on a camel ; but, after all, I was anxious 
to know what were the particular excitements of Eastern life, which 
detained J., who is a town-bred man, from his natural pleasures and 
occupations in London; where his family don't hear from him, where his 
room is still kept ready at home, and his name is on the list of his club; 
and where his neglected sisters tremble to think that their Frederick 
is going about with a great beard and a crooked sword, dressed up 
like an odious Turk. In a " lark " such a costume may be" very well; 
but home, London, a razor, your sister to make tea, a pair of moderate 
Christian breeches in lieu of those enormous Turkish shulwars, are 
vastly more convenient in the long run. What was it that kept him 
away from these decent and accustomed delights ? 

It couldn't be the black eyes in the balcony — upon his honour she 
was only the black cook, who has done the pilaff, and stuffed the 
cucumbers. No, it was an indulgence of laziness such as Europeans, 
Englishmen at least, don't know how to enjoy. Here he lives 
like a languid Lotus-eater — a dreamy, hazy, lazy, tobaccofied life. 
He was away from evening-parties, he said ; he needn't wear white 
kid-gloves, or starched neckcloths, or read a newspaper. And even 
this life at Cairo was too civilized for him ; Englishmen passed 
through ; old acquaintances would call : the great pleasure of 
pleasures was life in the desert, — under the tents, with still more 
nothing to do than in Cairo ; now smoking, now cantering on Arabs, 
and no crowd to jostle you ; solemn contemplations of the stars at night, 
as the camels were picketed, and the fires and the pipes were lighted. 



SKETCH ON THE PYRAMID. 



509 



The night-scene in the city is very striking for its vastness and 
loneliness. Everybody has gone to rest long before ten o'clock. There 
are no lights in the enormous buildings ; only the stars blazing above, 
with their astonishing brilliancy, in the blue, peaceful sky. Your 
guides carry a couple of little lanterns, which redouble the darkness 
in the solitary, echoing street. Mysterious people are curled up and 
sleeping in the porches. A patrol of soldiers passes, and hails you. 
There is a light yet in one mosque, where some devotees are at 
prayers all night ; and you hear the queerest nasal music proceeding 
from those pious believers. As you pass the mad-house, there is one 
poor fellow still talking to the moon — no sleep for him. He howls 
and sings there all the night — quite cheerfully, however. He has not 
lost his vanity with his reason ; he is a Prince in spite of the bars and 
the straw. 

What to say about those famous edifices, which has not been better 
said elsewhere ? — but you will not believe that we visited them, unless 
I bring some token from them. Here is one : — 




That white-capped lad skipped up the stones with a jug of water 
in his hand, to refresh weary, climbers ; and, squatting himself down 
on 'the summit, was designed as you see. The vast, flat landscape 



5>° A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO. 

stretches behind him; the great winding river ; the purple citv with 

nSfd ,r S ' ^ SpireS J *» *« felds *»<• Proves nd 
speckled ullages; the plains still covered with shining inundations- 
the landscape stretches far, far away, until i, is lost Id mingled in 
the golden honzon. It ,s poor work this landscape-painting in print 
Shelley s two sonnets are the best views that I know of the Pyramids 
-better than the reahty ; for a man may lay down the book ™d in 

sCt belTT d H P a PktUre ° Ut ° f *ese y mag,d fi centt r ds,:hi h 
shan t be disturbed by any pettinesses or mean realities -such as th" 
swarms of howling beggars, who jostle you about the actual I ace 

Taw, foron^ ~" ""* "* ^ « *«" « 

the M rf^° ' he P r m l dS I' ° ne ° f * e P leasantest P^ble. In 

the fall of the year, though the sky is almost cloudless above von 

he sun is not too hot to bear; and the landscape, refreshed bv the 

ubsidmg inundations, delightfully green and cheerful. We made up 

a party of some half-dozen from the hotel, a lady (the kind soda 

r e L P ;°b v v Is dV; hose ho T a% the most » -* 

are hereby offered) being of the company, bent like the rest unon 
going to the summit of Cheops. Those who were cautious and wise 
took a brace of donkeys. At least five times during the route did 
my ammals fall with me, causing me to repeat the DeLn expele m 

pal o7te and"* '"" T?~ ^ ^ b — a ^"r 
pair of legs and the ground, is not many inches. B v eschewing 

stirrups, the donkey could fad, and the rider alight on the 3 
with the greatest ease and grace. Almost everybody was do! and 
up again m the course of the day, 

We passed through the Ezbekieh and by the suburbs of the town 
where the garden-houses of the Egyptian noblesse arc siLted ,o ffld 
Cairo, where a ferry-boat took the whole party across the Nile wi h 
that noise and bawling volubility in which the Arab people seem o 
be so unhke the grave and silent Turks ; and so took ou coursTfor 
some eight or ten miles over the devious tract which the sti.ou.Tvit 
waters obhgcd us to pursue. The Pyramids were in sight the w Me 

o2L dclicLr "Th™ 7 Cl ° UdS ^ h ° Ve ™S OTer "-> »d 
tw th, v r ° Sy Shad ° WS ' Up ° n the 8™* sim P k - °>d Piles. 
Along the track we saw a score of pleasant pictures of Eastern life : 

Z , r a " d S ' areS st00d "Phoned at his door; at 

uie gate of one country-house, I am sorry to say, the Bey's ^ wa in 



PIGMIES AND PYRAMIDS. 511 

waiting, — a most unromantic chariot : the husbandmen were coming 
into the city, with their strings of donkeys and their loads ; as they 
arrived, they stopped and sucked at the fountain : a column of red- 
capped troops passed to drill, with slouched gait, white uniforms, and 
glittering bayonets. Then we had the pictures at the quay : the 
ferry-boat, and the red-sailed river-boat, getting under weigh, and 
bound up the stream. There was the grain market, and the huts on 
the opposite side ; and that beautiful woman, with silver armlets, and 
a face the colour of gold, which (the nose-bag having been luckily 
removed) beamed solemnly on us Europeans, like a great yellow 
harvest moon. The bunches of purpling dates were pending from 
the branches ; gray cranes or herons were flying over the cool, 
shining lakes, that the river's overflow had left behind ; water was 
gurgling through the courses by the rude locks and barriers formed 
there, and overflowing this patch of ground ; whilst the neighbouring 
field was fast budding into the more brilliant fresh green. Single 
dromedaries were stepping along, their riders lolling on their hunches ; 
low sail-boats were lying in the canals; now, we crossed an old 
marble bridge ; now, we went, one by one, over a ridge of slippery 
earth ; now, we floundered through a small lake of mud. At last, at 
about half-a-mile off the Pyramid, we came to a piece of water some 
two score yards broad, where a regiment of half-naked Arabs, seizing 
upon each individual of the party, bore us off on their shoulders, to 
the laughter of all, and the great perplexity of several, who every 
moment expected to be pitched into one of the many holes with which 
the treacherous lake abounded. 

It was nothing but joking and laughter, bullying of guides, shout- 
ing for interpreters, quarrelling about sixpences. We were acting a 
farce, with the Pyramids for the scene. There they rose up enormous 
under our eyes, and the most absurd, trivial things were going on 
under their shadow. The sublime had disappeared, vast as they 
were. Do you remember how Gulliver lost his awe of the tremendous 
Brobdingnag ladies ? Every traveller must go through all sorts of 
chaffering, and bargaining, and paltry experiences, at this spot. You 
look up the tremendous steps, with a score of savage ruffians bellow- 
ing round you ; you hear faint cheers and cries high up, and catch 
sight of little reptiles crawling upwards ; or, having achieved the 
summit, they come hopping and bouncing down again from degree to 
degree, — the cheers and cries swell louder and more disagreeable ; 



512 A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

presently the little jumping thing, no bigger than an insect a moment 
ago, bounces down upon you expanded into a panting Major of 
Bengal cavalry. He drives off the Arabs with an oath, — wipes his 
red, shining face with his yellow handkerchief, drops puffing on the 
sand in a shady corner, where cold fowl and hard eggs are awaiting 
him, and the next minute you see his nose plunged in a foaming 
beaker of brandy and soda-water. He can say now, and for ever, he 
has been up the Pyramid. There is nothing sublime in it. You 
cast your eye once more up that staggering perspective of a zigzag 
line, which ends at the summit, and wish you were up there — and 
down again. Forwards ! — Up with you ! It must be done. Six 
Arabs are behind you, who won't let you escape if you would. 

The importunity of these ruffians is a ludicrous annoyance to 
which a traveller must submit. For two miles before you reach the 
Pyramids they seize on you and never cease howling. Five or six of 
them pounce upon one victim, and never leave him until they have 
carried him up and down. Sometimes they conspire to run a man up 
the huge stair, and bring him, half-killed and fainting, to the top. 
Always a couple of brutes insist upon impelling you sternwards ; from 
whom the only means to release yourself is to kick out vigorously and 
unmercifully, when the Arabs will possibly retreat. The ascent is not 
the least romantic, or difficult, or sublime : you walk up a great 
broken staircase, of which some of the steps are four feet high. It's 
not hard, only a little high. You see no better view from the top 
than you beheld from the bottom ; only a little more river, and sand, 
and rice-field. You jump down the big steps at your leisure ; but 
your meditations you must keep for after-times, — the cursed shrieking 
of the Arabs prevents all thought or leisure. 

And this is all you have to tell about the Pyramids ? Oh ! for 

shame ! Not a compliment to their age and size ? Not a big phrase, 
— not a rapture ? Do you mean to say that you had no feeling of 
respect and awe ? Try, man, and build up a monument of words as 
lofty as they are — they, whom " imber edax " and " aquilo impotens " 
and the flight of ages have not been able to destroy ! 

— No : be that work for great geniuses, great painters, great poets ! 
This quill was never made to take such flights ; it comes of the wing 
of a humble domestic bird, who walks a common ; who talks a great 
deal (and hisses sometimes) ; who can't fly far or high, and drops 
always very quickly ; and whose unromantic end is, to be laid on a 



THINGS TO THINK OF. 513 

Michaelmas or Christmas table, and there to be discussed for half-an- 
hour — let us hope, with some relish. 



Another week saw us in the Quarantine Harbour at Malta, where 
seventeen days of prison and quiet were almost agreeable, after the 
incessant sight-seeing of the last two months. In the interval, 
between the 23rd of August and the 27th of October, we may boast of 
having seen more men and cities than most travellers have seen ki 
such a time : — Lisbon, Cadiz, Gibraltar, Malta, Athens, Smyrna, 
Constantinople, Jerusalem, Cairo. I shall have the carpet-bag, which 
has visited these places in company with its owner, embroidered with 
their names ; as military flags are emblazoned, and laid up in 
ordinary, to be looked at in old age. With what a number of sights 
and pictures, — of novel sensations, and lasting and delightful remem- 
brances, does a man furnish his mind after such a tour ! You forget all 
the annoyances of travel ; but the pleasure remains with you, through 
that kind provision of nature by which a man forgets being ill, but 
thinks with joy of getting well, and can remember all the minute 
circumstances of his convalescence. I forget what sea-sickness is 
now : though it occupies a woful portion of my Journal. There was 
a time on board when the bitter ale was decidedly muddy ; and the 
cook of the ship deserting at Constantinople, it must be confessed his 
successor was for some time before he got his hand in. These 
sorrows have passed away with the soothing influence of time : the 
pleasures of the voyage remain, let us hope, as long as life will 
endure. It was but for a couple of days that those shining columns 
of the Parthenon glowed under the blue sky there ; but the experience 
of a life could scarcely impress them more vividly. We saw Cadiz 
only for an hour ; but the white buildings, and the glorious blue sea, 
how clear they are to the memory ! — with the tang of that gipsy's 
guitar dancing in the market-place, in the midst of the fruit, and the 
beggars, and the sunshine. Who can forget the Bosphorus, the 
brightest and fairest scene in all the world ; or the towering lines of 
Gibraltar ; or the great piles of Mafra, as we rode into the Tagus ? 
As I write this, and think, back comes Rhodes, with its old towers 
and artillery, and that wonderful atmosphere, and that astonishing 
blue sea which environs the island. The Arab riders go pacing over 
the plains of Sharon, in the'rosy twilight, just before sunrise ; and I 

33 



5H A JOURNEY FROM CORN HILL TO CAIRO. 

can see the ghastly Moab mountains, with the Dead Sea gleaming 
before them, from the mosque on the way towards Bethany. The 
black, gnarled trees of Gethsemane lie at the foot of Olivet, and the 
yellow ramparts of the city rise up on the stony hills beyond. 

But the happiest and best of all the recollections, perhaps, are 
those of the hours passed at night on the deck, when the stars were 
shining overhead, and the hours were tolled at their time, and your 
thoughts were fixed upon home far away. As the sun rose I once 
heard the priest, from the minaret of Constantinople, crying out, 
"Come to prayer," with his shrill voice ringing through the clear air; 
and saw, at the same hour, the Arab prostrate himself and pray, and 
the Jew Rabbi, bending over his book, and worshipping the Maker 
of Turk and Jew. Sitting at home in London, and writing this last 
line of farewell, those figures come back the clearest of all to the 
memory, with the picture, too, of our ship sailing over the peaceful 
Sabbath sea, and our own prayers and services celebrated there. So 
each, in his fashion, and after his kind, is bowing down, and adoring 
the Father, who is equally above all. Cavil not, you brother or 
sister, if your neighbour's voice is not like yours ; only hope that his 
words are honest (as far as they may be), and his heart humble 
and thankful. 



THE END OF "A JOURNEY FROM CORNHILL TO CAIRO." 



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